


with a fairy hand in hand (and the word's more full of weeping than you can understand)

by akisawana



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bad Parenting, Blood and Gore, Blow Jobs, Bottoming from the Top, Cake, Derealization, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, First Time Topping, Hospital Sex, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, RvB Rare Pair Week, and a large fry, background tex/north, cute domestic fluff, going in dry, gratuitous Spanish, many scenes in a hospital, minecraft modding, table-flipping, the grossest scene i have ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2018-12-22 08:42:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11963805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akisawana/pseuds/akisawana
Summary: Dr. Omega Kimball has a   career as an orthopedic surgeon, a wonderful boyfriend working on his doctorate, a mother and sister and madrina who support him, and a weird best friend who communicates entirely in memes. And if Aidan Price is what a father is like, he's glad he doesn't have one.This is the AU where the AIs arenotsiblings.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note the first: I may have forgotten to tag something. I will gladly add any warnings that I left out. Still, please read at your own risk.
> 
> Note the second: I AM SO HYPE FOR THIS FIC YOU HAVE NO IDEA. It's part of a bigger AU. There, uh, is significant canon divergence. This is my love letter to Omega and my attempt to make him something worthy of Tex.
> 
> Note the last: _y'all thought my thing was eyeballs_.

"Your mom told me you threatened North with a knife."

Omega turned away from Emily, stared at the sleeping tiger. "I wasn't gonna hurt him. I just wanted to scare him. He made Tex _cry_."

"He didn't know that. Tex didn't know that."

Omega muttered under his breath, "duh, he's only scared if he thinks i mean it."

"Omega." Emily wrapped her arm around her godson. "Sweetie, you can't scare people with knives. I believe you when you say you wouldn't hurt him. But scaring someone with a knife is called assault and it's illegal. Because the police and the judge, they don't know you like I do, and you could get in a lot of trouble."

Omega pulled away from her and gripped the railing separating him from the big cat. The tiger pointed its ears at him and blinked slowly. Emily had read once that was how housecats said I love you. "But I was so angry," he growled.

"You were angry, and it's not wrong to be angry when someone makes your sister sad." Emily didn't touch him again, put her hand on the metal next to his. He didn't move away. "But anger didn't threaten North. you chose to do that."

Omega muttered something under his breath and leaned against her side. "Do you hate me?"

"Oh, of course not, mijo." Emily hugged him. He was almost as tall as she was. "I just wish you would make different choices sometimes. That doesn't mean I hate you."

"You'd take me away from Tex," Omega said into her shoulder. "Mom said."

Emily rubbed his back and thought about the scratches on Omega's arms like the tiger's stripes. "You'd have to make some pretty bad choices, but yes. That could happen. Look at me."

Omega looked up at her, his eyes brimming with tears he refused to shed. He wasn't a bad kid, and his mother knew that. But Vanessa wasn't naive enough to brush it off as childish. Omega had threatened to kill North. 

"You can also choose to not hurt people, and not scare them."

"But I was so angry," he whispered again. "She was crying and I had to protect her. I had to do something."

"You could have called me," Emily said. "you can always call me or your mom. Can you promise me, next time you want to hurt someone or scare someone, you'll call me instead?"

Omega blinked, half-panicked, looked at his shoes and didn't try to deny that he would want to do that. "They won't let me have my phone at school."

"I'll talk to the school, okay? And if you get angry you can call me and we'll think of some other way besides threatening people."

"Like asking North to leave without the knife in my hand?" Omega asked, and he sounded exactly like his mother. She was trying so hard, but Omega only had half her genetic code. And the other half didn't come from a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

"Yes, tigrecito. I know it's scary telling someone bigger than you to go away, but you could have tried that." Emily hugged him tight. "Protecting your sister is never a bad thing, okay? That is a good choice."

"It's still a stupid rule," Omega said, pulling away. "What if he hurt her?"

"She trusts him," Emily said. "And he loves her. People don't hurt people that they love."

Omega looked back at the animal. The tiger was his favorite part of the zoo. Emily wondered what part of the tiger he saw in himself. "I'm not telling him I'm sorry," he said. "But I guess it's okay if he's around. If Tex likes him."


	2. Chapter 2

The door closed, and finally they were alone, in their own apartment. Omega put his hands on the wall above Delta’s head, loomed over him. “You’re trapped with me now,” he said, grinning wickedly when Delta pressed back against the wall.

Delta was never quite sure if Omega’s eyes were grey or purple or blackened silver, and he examined them once again, without saying a word. He knew what Omega would do in the face of his silence; Omega was quite predictable that way. Delta didn’t say a word, only tipped his head back enough to meet Omega’s eyes with a lazy blink. 

“What to do with you now,” Omega murmured, leaning in close enough for Delta to feel hot breath against his cheek. One of Omega’s hands slid down the wall to rest on Delta’s shoulder, tight and burning, his thumb stroking the skin just above Delta’s collar and Delta couldn’t stop the shiver. “I could do whatever I wanted to you, you know. Make you scream.”

Delta tugged Omega forward by the belt loops of his jeans. Was that not half the point of getting their own place, privacy? It’d taken Delta four _years_ to convince Omega to move out of his mother’s house. Must he waste more time? “Is that a promise?”

They came together like a metaphor, Omega’s hands cradling Delta’s skull careful as glass, Delta’s hands sliding around Omega’s waist and up his back. “Mine,” Omega growled against Delta’s mouth, close enough for Delta to drink the word in. “Mine, fuck, mine.”

Delta closed his eyes when Omega’s hand slid down his spine, vertebra by vertebra, and let the words take residence somewhere behind his ribs. Omega’s hands on Delta’s waist, his own across the wings of Omega’s shoulder blades, so close that Delta could feel Omega’s heart in his own chest, not enough room between them for daylight let alone the Holy Spirit. Whatever that meant, something York said laughing. If it made York laugh, it was good, and if it was good Delta wanted to give it to Omega and he kissed Omega deep until the blood roared in his ears. 

“Bed,” he whispered, pulling away and Omega chasing him with little nips like he couldn’t get enough of Delta’s taste. “Bed,” he repeated, louder.

Delta swallowed a shriek when Omega’s hands slipped around and far enough down to knead at Delta’s rear, to hoist him off his feet. Delta clung to the taller man; it was only eight steps to the bed and Omega laid him down gently, stood up and pulled his shirt off.

Delta pulled him down far more urgently, his hands going for the fly of Omega’s jeans. Omega drew one knee up on the bed to make Delta’s self-appointed task easier, set to work on Delta’s own shirt-buttons to make it harder. Impatient as ever, Omega shoved Delta’s undershirt up so he could reach skin before Delta had managed more than the zip, and Delta’s hands fell away as Omega pressed searing kisses to his chest.

Delta’s hands grasped for purchase on the bed, their bed and they hadn’t even settled who’d sleep on what side and he would have asked except all he could manage was a groan and a hand in Omega’s hair, tugging gently to get his attention.

Omega looked up at him, pupils blown dark and his lips around the peak of Delta’s nipple. “Condoms. Lube,” Delta husked, unable to manage verbs with Omega’s fingers tracing his bones. Barely able to care about the niceties, but Omega _rarely_ did. “Pants,” he added as an afterthought.

Omega tore himself away, his hands lingering on Delta’s skin and Delta watched him kick his pants off before he disappeared naked out the bedroom door. Delta stood up, freed his trapped arousal from own pants and underwear, placed them neatly to the side. He braced his hands on the bed for a moment, his shirt still hanging off his shoulders and undershirt still rucked up and closed his eyes, thinking of Omega’s naked back, thinking of Omega looming over him, wrapped around him. Safe, safe as life, and it was his tonight and every night, it was the default now. Tonight and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow his sleep would be guarded by the tigers inked on Omega’s arms and he always slept better tucked under Omega’s chin. Could Omega say the same?

Delta didn’t think it was arrogance to think so. Omega clung to him, asleep and awake. Sleeping in the same bed would be a mutually beneficial arrangement. That was good. He wanted to make Omega happy, wanted to see his rare smile, the soft small one only Delta and Theta and Tex got to see, the one not even his mother saw. It was hardly bigger than the tips of Delta’s fingers pressed together, slipped away fast as lightning.

“Hey.” Omega draped himself across Delta’s still-clothed back. “Still with me?”

Delta nodded. “I want to watch you,” he said, pressing back against Omega’s chest. He reached between his own legs and found himself not as hard as before, gave himself a few desultory strokes.

Omega never pulled away easily, and this time was no different, pressing tiny kisses along Delta’s jaw. But he managed to get himself on the bed, sitting against the headboard with his legs spread wide enough for Delta to settle between his knees. Delta resumed his idle one-handed stroking over his own cock; Omega’s was red and dripping and bouncing against his belly from anticipation alone.

Omega tossed the little foil packet in front of Delta, but Delta let it lie, far more interested in Omega’s hands flipping open the lube, his dark hazy eyes. Someone else might watch Omega’s hands, long clever surgeon’s fingers opening himself up for his boyfriend but Delta preferred to watch his face, watch him bite his own lip around tiny moans, watch the flush across his cheeks and down his neck, watch his eyes fight to stay open when pleasure tried to screw them shut. So open, so clear, even without words.

Delta kept one hand on Omega’s leg, stroking from knee to ankle, murmuring praise. “So good for me.” Even with Omega’s hand two knuckles deep in himself, his other hand stretched up and behind himself to hold the headboard in a white-knuckled grip, even without Omega’s hands on his skin, Delta had to concentrate for anything more than monosyllables. “Want to make you feel good. Do a good job, don’t want to hurt you.” Was that too many goods? Was that okay?

A better question would be did Omega care. Not from the way the tendons stood out in his neck and his arm, the way he pulled his fingers out with a wet sound that went straight to Delta’s cock from Pavlovian training alone. “Please,” he gasped, begging easily for Delta’s hand sliding up his thigh. “Please. Need you, fuck, need you now.”

Delta tore open the condom and rolled it on, all for cleaning up later. He gathered Omega’s legs into his lap, and Omega bent in near-impossible ways, one foot braced behind Delta’s hip and the other ankle on Delta’s shoulder, and Delta pressed forward through the tight ring stretched just enough, he hoped, to not hurt and Omega sighed and his other hand reached up as well and his back arched under Delta’s hands beautifully, beautifully.

They came together, again and again, and Delta’s hands ran over Omega’s chest, down his abs, wrapped around his neglected cock and Omega choked on his whine. Still Delta rocked against him, into him, and whispered, “So good, feel so good, so good,” and every line of Omega’s body was taut as drumskin under Delta’s hand until Omega turned his head and bit his own arm and spilled over Delta’s hand and tightened around him until Delta cried out and came so hard he saw stars, green bleeding into purple.

After, once they cleaned up and threw the top blanket to the side, once Delta got his shirt the rest of the way off and they were tangled together under the sheet, Delta laid his head on Omega’s shoulder and Omega ran clean hands through Delta’s hair and Delta was warm and that was the moment he wished could last forever.

* * *

It started with an empty can of coffee in the morning. Or, Delta didn't notice until he opened the can and found not even enough for half a pot. Only the smell, and the sound of Omega in the shower on the other side of the wall, and the sinking feeling that something was very wrong. What else was missing that they wouldn't find until too late? What other basic adult task had they failed? Price was right, Price was always right. Delta wasn't capable of living on his own, wasn't capable of living with Omega who expected a partner, not a dependent. How long could they play house?

Delta reverie was broken by York plucking the can out of his hands. " _Delta_ ," he said, probably not for the first time. Delta hadn't even heard him come in the front door. "Are you sleepwalking or what?"

"I've never walked in my sleep," Delta said. He couldn't hear the shower anymore. He'd promised Omega coffee when he was out of the shower and he didn't manage that.

"It's a beautiful day to cut off some feet," Omega said, reaching up to hook his fingers over the molding on top of the doorway. "Hey, Cyclops. I thought you guys didn't have class today?"

"Meg, you are really creepy, you know that?" York set the coffee can on the counter. "I appreciate that you've channeled this towards helping people, but you get downright frightening sometimes."

Omega shrugged, still half-hanging from the ceiling. One of the tigers snarled upside-down at Delta. "Cancer needs to be cut out," Omega said.

"Like I said, it's appreciated. Don't stop," York replied. "I'm just wondering if you're like this all the time _._ "

"Only for you, sweetheart." Omega grinned at Delta.

"He is like this almost the time," Delta informed York. No matter how familiar his best friend was was his boyfriend, York couldn't know what Omega was like when York wasn't around unless Delta told him. "I think he chooses to be, though."

"You _think_?" Omega asked, smiling at something Delta didn't understand.

"I hypothesize." Delta smiled back at him. "I have not seen it myself, but I hope."

Omega laughed, swinging a little. "I'll try to live up to your faith in me," he said. "I gotta get going. How much longer on the coffee?"

Delta froze.

"You're out," York said, tapping on the empty can.

“Me cago en un tren lleno de santos, obispos, y angeles con jesucristo de conductor,” Omega cursed. Delta tensed, waiting for him to hit the wall.

"I'll bring some home," Omega said, dropping his arms. "I gotta go, stop and get some on the way. Text me anything else we need?"

Delta nodded, mutely, still waiting for Omega to explode.

But Omega just let go of the ceiling and hurried towards the door, pausing to kiss Delta. Then he looked down at Delta, his brow knitted in confusion for some reason, and kissed Delta again, folded his arms around Delta.

Delta didn't understand it but he accepted it, opening himself to Omega, letting Omega run his hands through Delta's hair. How could Delta want to leave him?

He should. He really should. Omega deserved better. But it was so hard when he had Omega's biceps under his fingers, Omega's chest pressed against his own, Omega smiling against his lips. But it would be bitter medicine for the surgeon, and Delta was too weak to do that.

With one more kiss, Omega was gone, and Delta hugged himself, trying to keep the warmth.

"So," York said, startling Delta out of his reverie twice in one morning. "Living together is going well, I take it."

"Great," Delta lied. Half a lie, really. He was going to enjoy it as long as it lasted.

The coffee can sat on the counter, empty, asking him how long that would be.

* * *

"Are you doing the budget now?" Omega asked when he was wiping down the kitchen counters. He always cleaned the kitchen when Delta made dinner; he said it was only fair.

Delta nodded behind his laptop. "I'd like to set up autopay, now that we've got everything set up." Delta was never quite sure what to do while Omega cleaned up the mess he had made. But the kitchen wasn't big enough for two people and Omega could be so insistent. Delta opened up a new spreadsheet, and by the time he had organized all the information he had on bits of paper, Omega was done in the kitchen and holding out a yet another scrap of paper in Delta's direction. "What's this?" Delta asked, taking it.

"The login to my bank account. So you can set up the autopays" Omega sat on the other end of the couch, next to Delta's outstretched feet. "Mind if I put on my murdershow?"

"I don't mind." There were so many accounts to set up, numbers to double-check. Delta wouldn't have been able to pay attention to the tv if he tried.

"Can I draw on you?" Omega asked a few minutes later.

"Yes," Delta said, spinning the scroll wheel of his dead mouse. Omega wouldn't care if he had quiet hands. He was sure that Omega asking had nothing to do with the soothing click-click-click under Delta's fingers. Omega just liked to draw, on paper and on people. Delta reminded himself of that.

Omega took Delta's foot in his lap. Delta enjoyed when Omega drew on his skin; Omega used soft markers that never scratched, and though he never hurt Delta his strokes were firm enough that it didn't tickle. And when he was touching Delta, Delta knew where he was without looking, knew he was close without looking.

Delta wondered what Omega was drawing. Omega did this often, and Delta would keep them for several days, a reminder written across his skin that he was loved. The drawings came off easily with a little rubbing alcohol, and Omega didn't care if Delta took them off as soon as he was done or days later.

The hardest number for his spreadsheet was the grocery bill, but Delta looked up how much most couples spent online and added fifteen percent. Shopping for food itself was Omega's domain; Delta hated going to the grocery store with all the lights and smells and the water that sprayed the vegetables. Like cleaning the kitchen, Omega insisted on doing it without Delta's help. Unlike cleaning the kitchen, Delta couldn't do it himself. Or he could, but it was exhausting and time-consuming, and it was easier to let Omega do it. Delta hated it, hated another way Price was right and Delta couldn't contribute. He had to trust that Omega meant what he said when he told Delta he didn't mind.

The final number was more than Delta thought. It was the garbage collection and the groceries, and how the electric bill was lower than where he lived before but now there was a gas bill larger than the difference. An unpleasant surprise, and the scroll-wheel clicked under Delta's fingers and he waited for Omega to tell him quiet hands.

But Omega did not, and eventually Delta made himself arrange the bills into two columns that added up to the same number. It meant Omega would pay three bills and the groceries to Delta's six, but the two of the three paid out of Omega's accounts were the two largest. It was easy to set them up to automatically withdraw, as Omega said he could.

But that left the six other ones, the ones Delta would pay. How he would pay, Delta didn't know. Not with his stipend, that wasn't enough and it was all he was getting for the semester. Not with his savings, wiped out by the latest automotive disaster. A job? Where would he find the time? Where would he even find one that would work around his schedule and give him time to finish his thesis?

Nowhere, that was for sure. It wasn't that Delta refused to work. He'd tried before, as a teenager and an undergrad and it just didn't work. Price was right, Delta couldn't manage it. Delta couldn't be normal for four hours at a stretch, not when other people were looking. Not when he was working a cash register or a stockroom or filing papers. He could barely manage two, and nobody would want him for less than four hours a day, four days a week. Getting a job would just be a waste of time for whoever hired him, and for Omega when Delta wouldn't have enough human left in him at the end of the day, he'd proven it before and he wasn't going to prove it again. Delta was going to accept his limits, accept that he couldn't manage to work regardless of the accommodations Price arranged for him.

Click-click-click went the wheel. "Delta?" Omega said, and Delta dropped the mouse, startled. "It's done," Omega told him, scooping up the dead mouse. "Do you like it?"

Delta carefully closed his laptop and drew his leg up to examine his foot. Omega had drawn a small dragon in gold, with one green eye and one eye milky-white amid long-healed scars. The body wound, snake-like and covered with tiny fish scales, around Delta's ankle and the tail curled around a flaming pearl. It was beautiful. "I do," Delta said. It scowled up at him, one triple-claw raised to attack. He wished that it could really leap off his leg and defend him.

"Is something wrong?" Omega asked. "Do you need me to punch someone?"

"No," Delta said, because he couldn't think of a way Omega punching anyone would make money appear in his bank account. "It's fine. Everything's fine."

* * *

Delta waited until York had gone home and Omega was at work, waited until he knew he wasn't going to be interrupted. Wasn't going to be witnessed. He brought his phone into the bedroom, sat on the bed.

No, that wasn't right. He laid down, rolled onto Omega's side. This was better. He could make the call from this spot. He was just going to check his email first. There was nothing there, but his stamina had refilled, and it would only take two minutes to set up the missions, right?

But when he opened the game, there were event boxes to open, and then he had enough premium currency to pull five times, and then of course he had to upgrade the units before he sent them out, but it was nothing, it was quick, quick, and he was ready to call.

Except now he had to use the bathroom, and he left his phone on the bed so he'd come right back. After he washed his hands and poured himself juice in the kitchen, drank it slowly so he wouldn't choke, ice cold in his mouth down his throat and freezing in his stomach.

He should go back in the bedroom but the cup had to be taken care of first, no time at all to put it in the dishwasher except the dishwasher was waiting to be unloaded and that was easy enough to do, quickly but carefully, cups and plates on the shelves, spoons and forks in the drawer, knives back in the rack where they belonged. Simple and quick and not stalling at all, and then the washer buzzed so he moved the clothes to the dryer before he forgot and they started to mildew.

Back to the bedroom, on Omega's side of the bed, in the precise spot. The only spot where this call would be possible. But first Delta had to check his email and his dash, reload the front page and that story wouldn't take any time at all to read. But there was incorrect information, and Delta had to go find the proper citation for his comment, and after he'd posted it his frontpage reloaded again, automatic this time, and there were two more articles to read.

But that was it. The rest could wait, Delta told himself. He needed to make the call. He opened the actual phone app.

Delta closed the app and opened sudoku. Just one game, he told himself. He would play just one round of sudoku and then he would call. The first puzzle he solved in under a minute. That meant he could play another and it wouldn't be cheating, right?

In the end, Delta played twenty-three rounds of sudoku. Then, and only then, was he ready to call Price.

The phone rang and rang, and Delta hoped it would go to voicemail. But it did not, and Price answered with "Hello," and a pause.

"Dad, it's me," Delta said, even though Price should know.

"Delta." Price's voice was always patient, measured. "How good to hear from you."

"Dad, I need money," Delta said, because that was the reason he was calling.

On the other end Price sighed. "I knew you called because you wanted something from me," he said. "I never hear from you otherwise, you are aware?"

Delta didn't say anything at first. What was he supposed to say? But Price didn't like when he didn't answer a question. "I didn't know I was supposed to call."

"Oh, Delta. That's my fault, I suppose. You've been pretending so well, I almost managed to forget. I'm hurt right now. I know you won't know that from my voice, so I'm telling you."

That wasn't a question. Delta didn't have to answer. He closed his eyes and pressed his head back into Omega's pillow.

"Now. Why were you calling? What do you want?" Price asked.

"I need money," Delta said again.

"I heard you the first time," Price said. "What do you _want_? Don't you get a stipend from the university?"

"It's not enough," Delta explained, and he didn't know if he was making the words right, was talking too fast or too slow or too flat. "I don't have enough money for the bills. I had to pay to have my car fixed and now I don't have enough money for the rest of the semester."

"I told you that you couldn't afford to live together." Price had, but Omega said they could, Omega's mom had shown them how. "Did Omega misrepresent how much money he would be bringing home?"

"No," Delta admitted. "He could pay all of them but that's not fair."

"No, it isn't," Price agreed. "I know you can't work for the money. I saw how hard you worked before, and how it was still never good enough. I don't think, after the last time, I could even find you another job."

"I'm not asking you to," Delta said. "I've learned my lesson. I won't try to work like a regular person anymore." That was a lie. York thought Delta could work like a regular person, if it was the right job. Could Price tell he was lying?

"What are you asking for then, Delta? What do you _want?"_

_"_ I need money," Delta said for the third time. "I need money so I won't be a child for Omega to take care of."

"That's what you need, and why," Price said. "But what do you want? Why did you call me?"

"Dad, please," Delta said, and he could taste tears in the back of his throat. "I want you to give me the money."

"I suppose I can loan it to you," Price said, after ten heartbeats. "I won't even charge you interest."

"Thank you, dad," Delta said. This wasn't a meltdown. He wasn't melting down. This didn't feel like a meltdown, unless he was doing it wrong.

"I do this because I love you," Price said, and Delta knew what he was supposed to say next.

"I love you too."

Then he hung up the phone, buried his face in Omega's pillow, and sobbed.


	3. Chapter 3

"So," Omega said, sitting in his sister's kitchen peeling apples. North had taken Theta to the skate park, leaving Omega with a narrow window to ask a very important question. "Theta's birthday. I want to buy him an Xbox."

"He has one, and his birthday isn't for months," Tex was standing next to the stove, stirring the batch of applesauce she'd already started. From the looks of it, she was making enough to last the whole year. Omega hoped she wasn't going to ask him to move the freezer again. He could, but that wasn't the point. Wasn't that what she kept North around for anyways, the heavy lifting?

Omega knew exactly what Theta had: Omega's old system and games, given to his nephew when he started working and didn't have time to play anymore. "I want to buy him the _new_ Xbox," he clarified. "Pre-orders open up this month. I got an in, but they're only getting so many bundles."

"You want to get him a whole _bundle?_ " Tex swapped out the bowl of apples in front of Omega, began to chop the peeled ones. "A launch-day release bundle is going to cost an arm and a leg."

"Luckily, I can get those at work easy," Omega joked. Tex didn't laugh, but he could see her smile. "Remember when Nina Emily bought me the PS2 weeks before any of my friends had it, and even when they got their own, I could play the same games as them and didn't have to wait?"

"Yeah," Tex said softly. "I do." That had been when Omega started to make friends without his mom or sister or madrina helping. Omega wouldn't accuse his friends of being mercenaries who only wanted to play with his toys. It was just, with the video games, he finally had something in common with boys his own age. Theta didn't have the handicap of being a teenaged uncle, but he had his own difficulties. "It is expensive, though. I don't want you eating ramen for a month again, not when you've got Delta too."

"I have the money," Omega promised. "Delta and I were talking, and he said I had enough money." Delta was so much better at budgeting than Omega; his mother used to charge him rent just so he wouldn't spend every penny he had. "He did this thing with the bank's website so that the money's my account but it shows as "already spent." Unless I overdraft or whatever."

"Delta mucks around in your bank account?" Tex set the knife down. "You gave him your password?"

"Why wouldn't I? Don't you have North's?" Omega didn't yell. Tex wouldn't listen if he yelled. Besides, Omega trusted Delta, and that was all there was to it.

"North is my husband," Tex pointed out.

"Exactly."

Tex looked at Omega quietly for a minute before picking up the knife and going back to chopping apples. "Better not be official, or Mom's going to kill you for not inviting her."

"It's not legal yet," Omega said, then changed the subject, since technically he hadn’t asked Delta yet. He’d given Delta his bank password, wasn’t that the same thing? "Are you going to let me buy my nephew this bundle or not?"

"Is Delta planning on the two of you eating nothing but ramen for a month and a half?" Tex asked. "He is like you in the deepest and most worrisome ways."

"Look," Omega huffed, digging out his phone. "I'll _show_ you." The bank app needed to update, and it had been so long since he logged in Omega had to answer the stupid security questions, but finally he got in. There was plenty of money for Theta's birthday present.

Too much money.

Delta not paying the bills money.

Omega cursed, and the bag of apple peels went flying halfway across the kitchen. Then he cursed again. The number made his jaw clench and his mouth go dry.

"Pick those up," Tex snapped. "I don't know what possessed your foot, but pick those up."

"I have money!" Omega yelled, dropping his phone. "There's money in my bank account!" He scraped some of the peels off the floor. "Why the fuck is there money in my account?"

"Isn't that the purpose of the thing?" Tex asked, and Omega didn't need to look at her to know she had her supremely-unimpressed look on her face.

"There's _too much_ goddamn money." Omega did not shriek, and he definitely didn't throw the peels. They just dropped out of his hand. On an arc. They were wet and slippery like that.

"That's it," Tex said, slamming the knife down. "Time out. Now."

"What?" Omega didn't move, didn't understand.

Tex pointed to the white bucket in the corner. "Go sit down, until you can talk like a reasonable person, not scream and fling things like a monkey." When Omega still just stared at her, she snapped her fingers at him. "Now."

Jesus, she sounded so much like their mother.

Omega stalked over to the bucket and flipped it over. At least it was clean, though he didn't know what she needed such a large bucket for. "I am a highly respected board-certified surgeon," he reminded her.

"And you can sit there until I clean up this mess or you remember how to act like one," Tex said. Just like their mother.

Omega sat down and folded his arms. "You're ridiculous," he told her.

"You're sitting on a bucket while I clean up after the fit you threw because you found you had money in your account," she shot back.

Omega leaned back against the wall and watched Tex sweep up the apple peels and put them back in the bag. Maybe not exactly like their mother, Mom would have let them sit there until Omega cleaned them up. "I don't think Delta's been paying the bills," he said finally.

Tex sat the bag next to Omega's chair. "Why not?"

"There's too much money." Omega unfolded himself from the bucket and crossed the floor. He didn't sit down, but he put his hands on the back of the chair. "He said he set up the autopay for everything, but it's not coming out."

"Might not kick in until the next billing cycle," Tex pointed out.

"That was two months ago!"

"So what, he just is letting the bills get behind? That doesn't sound like him. Make sure your phone still works."

"It doesn't sound like him," Omega agreed. His phone was fine, though the case had a new chip. That was fine. That was the whole point of the case, after all. "Something must be wrong. He wouldn't just not pay the bills."

Tex just looked at him, her head tilted a little bit.

"I gave him the passwords so he could pay the bills out of my account," Omega said. "I asked him to move in with me and I showed him that I could pay all the bills." His mom had helped, doing the arithmetic on the back of an envelope. Delta had been right there. "You don't think -- is he paying the other half?"

"Generally that's how it works," Tex said, tone drier than bone wax.

"But he can't afford it," Omega protested. "He just had to fix his car and anyways he doesn't get that much money from being a TA, and I know he doesn't have a secret job... Where is he getting the money?"

"How the hell should I know?" Tex turned back to her apples.

"I guess I'll have to ask him myself," Omega said, picking up the peeler.

"I'm so thrilled to hear that." Neither of them said anything for ten minutes or so after that. Omega didn't know what Tex was thinking. He was mostly trying to remember what he did that ever made Delta think Omega wasn't willing, happy even, to take care of him. He couldn't have left Delta with his father any more. Not with the way his father talked to him, treated him. Not when Price had told Omega that moving in with Delta would be the biggest mistake of his life. What was a few hundred bucks a month that he would have to spend on groceries and bills anyways next to that? Omega squeezed the apple in his hand.

"It's not about the money," Omega said. "It's about taking care of him. I...his dad's horrible, Tex. I've never met mine and there's no way he could be worse than Delta's. I had to get him out of there."

"Shining armor's not a good look for you, Meg," Tex said with a snort. "You're more the safety-pinned Ramones t-shirt type. And the damsel in distress suits him even less."

"Why won't he let me," Omega started, and the apple he was holding popped. "Shit!"

"If you throw it I will throw you out the window," Tex said. "Drop it in the bowl. It's fine." Omega did so, and wiped his hand on his jeans. "I don't know. You'll have to ask him yourself."

* * *

Delta was, to not put too fine a point on it, fucking beautiful. Omega loved his dark hair, his eyes electric green, the soft curve of his jaw and the surprising sharpness behind his ear. He loved Delta's hands, loved watching the tendons flex as Delta typed, the elegant slide of his knuckles when he traced circles on the table again and again and again. He reminded Omega of nothing so much as a fairy, some creature from Theta's storybooks, ancient and mysterious, lovely enough to stop a man's heart.

"What," Delta demanded irritably, looking up as he felt Omega's eyes on him.

"So are the bills not being paid or something?" Asking for information without accusing. Omega was rather proud of himself for that.

"They are," Delta said, eyes back to his computer screen. Omega could see the reflection in Delta's glasses, a red blob that could have been YouTube's logo, some video moving too quickly for Omega to track. "I told you I had set up the autopay."

"Yeah, that's what you said," Omega said, folding his hands in his lap. Gripping his own knee. "But did you?"

Delta lowered the laptop lid halfway. "Yes. Why would I say that if I hadn't done it?"

"I was just slightly confused, since there's money in my account." A lot of money, Omega didn't say. They're going to turn the lights off money.

"Probably because you have a job," Delta said, and Omega thought he was being sarcastic. Sometimes with Delta it was hard to tell. "You know, where you go in to the hospital every day and cut people's legs off. I know you do it for the fun of dismemberment, but they _do_ pay you, you remember."

Omega made a rude noise. "I'm aware of that," he said. "It's kind of the point I'm making here. I get paid. I give the money to you. You use it to pay the bills. Or at least set up the autopay. What part of that isn't happening?"

"Is that not what I did?" Delta closed the laptop fully. "I seem to recall doing that weeks ago."

"Then you're wrong." Omega stood up, restless. "According to my bank account half of them aren't being paid. For no good reason, the money's there and everything. Why's it there, Delta?"

Delta rolled his eyes at Omega, which turned into tipping his head back entirely and looking to the ceiling for guidance. "I'm paying the other half." The "idiot" was unspoken but _clearly_ heard.

It was one thing to guess with Tex. It was another thing entirely to hear it out of Delta's mouth, Delta who never lied to Omega. "I _said_ I'd take care of them," he snapped. Did Delta forget or simply not think Omega was capable of it. "I said I'd take care of _you_."

It was only fair after all Delta had done for him. Delta was the eye of the hurricane, quiet and golden, while Omega raged around him. Delta was smart and fearless and gentle. Gentle like snowflakes, tiny diamond stars falling and piling up until Omega couldn't move under their weight, cooling his blood and preventing him from breaking everything.

"I'm not your child," Delta said, low and simple, his laptop set to the side and his knees drawn up to his chest, looking very much like the child he wasn't.

"I never think of you like a child." Delta may have been barely bigger than Theta, and that not for much longer, but that was more due to Theta's genes than anything. And Omega could never think of him like a child, not when Delta was the one who made sure Omega ate more than candy and didn't go to work in mud-stained pants, not when Delta was the only one who could keep track of all those things when he held Omega together. No child could be as strong as Delta, strong enough for Omega's darkness when things fell apart and the center couldn't hold.

"So I'm your whore then?"

"What the _fuck,_ " Omega spluttered, and he almost hit the wall but he pulled it at the last second because he didn't want to scare Delta. He didn't know what was going on behind Delta's beautiful eyes. He didn't know what was wrong. He wasn't going to make it worse. "Of course not, Delta, where the fuck did you get that idea?"

Delta didn't look particularly scared, at least. "Then why do you have such a problem with me paying half the expenses? I live here too, don't I?"

Of course he did, but that didn't mean anything next to how much Omega needed him. Omega knew damn well that he was a full-time job -hadn't his madrina and his mother and his sister told him a million times since he started dating Delta? That Omega was intense, he was high-maintenance, that he was needy. That he needed to spread it out and leave Delta room to breathe, not overwhelm him. And Omega did the best he could to spread his shit evenly, but he still needed Delta in his arms last thing before he fell asleep and first thing in the morning. Omega knew he was hard to live with -he'd been doing it for upwards of two and a half decades and it never got any easier. The least he could do was not make Delta pay to be used like that.

"Where did you even get the money?" Omega asked, mostly to buy time while he tried to word it in a way Delta could understand, the necessity of Omega to pay all the bills, to pay Delta back for supporting him through his hellish med school and worse internship, for his patience during a residency which wasn't really all that better.

"Does it matter?" Delta put his feet on the floor and looked at them.

That was a dodge, and Delta never dodged. It didn't look quite right, like a broken bone not properly set. "Where did you get the money, sparkles?"

"I borrowed it," Delta said to his shoes. They were bar-laced. Omega had done it for him, because Delta thought it looked cool. It seemed years ago instead of last Tuesday. "From Price."

Omega wanted to hit something. Price, the wall. Something. But he could hear his madrina saying, "when you hit things, mi nino, people think that you're going to hit them next." But he wanted to so badly, wanted some physical proof, some easy visual of how absolutely fucked that was.

"It's not your business where the money comes from," Delta continued. "The bills are being paid."

"I don't want his goddamn blood money paying for shit," Omega snarled. "I'd rather be homeless than take a fucking dime from that bastard." Omega hated Price, hated him more than he thought one man could hate another. He hated the things Price said to Delta, about Delta. He hated the way Price kept a running tally of every kind thing he'd ever done his son and expected to be paid back. Omega didn't have a father, never knew his father, but he knew other people's fathers and he found the very idea nauseating. If he had his way, Price would die a painful death from Fournier's gangrene. Flesh-eating nercrosis of the penis. It seemed fitting, in that it was excruciatingly painful and Price was a horrible insult to cunts everywhere.

"You're being ridiculous," Delta said. "He was very kind to lend us the money."

"I don't want anything to do with it!" Omega yelled. He couldn't not yell. It was unproductive and Delta wouldn't listen but he was just too frustrated to care.

Delta stood up. "I'm going to York's," he said coolly. "I'll be back in the morning and we can discuss this at a reasonable volume."

"What? No, we're discussing this now!" Omega said, stepping out of Delta's way.

"No. We're not. I'll see you tomorrow," Delta said, and he was gone.

Omega stared at the closed door and cursed. He grabbed at his own hair but it was too short for a proper grip and he cursed again. What did he do now?

* * *

There was only one thing Omega could do, one place he could go. His mother's house, to come in her back door and say, "Mom. Mom, I fucked up."

Vanessa Kimball, called Teacher by a small army of former kindergarteners, the General by the rest of the school, Grandma by one no-longer-small boy and Mom by not only the children she bore but her son-in-law and...whatever South counted as, didn't so much as blink. It had been a few months since the last time Omega came home declaring the end of the world, and he had enough self-awareness to know she figured he was overdue. She stood up and pulled out a chair for her son. "Were the police, fire department, or EMTs called?"

"I'll put coffee on," Emily said. "Do you have cookies, dear?"

"No," Omega said. "I didn't commit any felonies or set any fires or hurt anyone this time." Though the police hadn't been called on Omega in about ten years now. And the fire department had only come the once, and it was more because of Theta. The ambulance, though, that was a fair question.

It didn't bother him here, in the kitchen he grew up in, familiar and safe. The kitchen table where he'd filled out his college applications and the stove Tex had caught on fire on the regular. The counter where South had taught him to make cookies and the fridge-top only he and North could reach and the patch where Omega had slipped on Theta's toy car and broke the wall with his skull. Here was his mother, somehow towering over him even though he should be a head taller, the woman who could make anything better. Here was his madrina, who couldn't have loved him more if he was her own flesh and blood and who knew how to keep him from making everything worse, who told him how to clean up his messes.

But he couldn't sit at the table with them. He didn't deserve to sit at the table with them, not when he'd forgotten or ignored everything they'd taught him. He'd scared Delta, and ruined everything, and they shouldn't be finding cookies for him and making coffee.

"What happened, Omega?" his mother asked, watching her son pace the kitchen, table to stove, sink to fridge.

"Delta went to York's." Under his fingers his jacket was rough, and though he knew it was impossible he still wondered if he could sandpaper his fingerprints right off.

"Step back, Meg," Emily said, arranging the cookies on a plate. "Why did Delta go to York's? York is his friend, yes?"

"I got mad, okay?" Omega said, louder than he meant to. "I got mad and I scared him and he left me and went to York's because York's his friend and doesn't swear at him!"

"Step back, Meg," his mother said. "You don't get mad for no reason. What did Delta do?"

"He didn't do anything to deserve it," Omega stood behind the chair that had been his as long as he could remember, next to his sister's. "Delta doesn't deserve me. I don't deserve him."

"That's not what your mother asked," his madrina said, gently like Omega deserved _that_. "Even if you overreacted, something happened to make you angry."

"Delta borrowed money from Price." Omega took off his jacket and turned around to hang it up, which had the bonus effect of not having to look them in the eye.

"Delta's father," he heard his mother say, in answer to Emily's silent question. "Omega, come sit down. Drink some coffee."

Omega wasn't in the habit of disobeying his mother, so he sat down and sipped his coffee, black as night and bitter as an unanswered prayer.

"Why did Delta borrow money?" Emily pushed the sugar bowl over to Omega. "I know you make enough money for the bills. Did something happen?"

"No," Omega said to his reflection in the coffee. "Delta wanted to pay half the bills. It's not, I know why he wants to. But he doesn't have to! It's not like most of this would be cheaper if it was just me, or whatever."

"Would you have moved out if it wasn't for him, though?" his mom asked, though she squeezed his arm. His mom hadn't tried to keep him from moving out, but she hadn't been pushing him out the door either.

"No," he admitted. "Maybe. I don't know. I liked living with him. It's not about the bills. It's about Price being an _asshole_. I don't want to owe him anything. He's going to make Delta pay him back. He always makes Delta pay him back. He has a whole spreadsheet on his computer for expenses going all the way back to when D was only _two_. How is that okay?"

"It's not," Emily said.

"Especially since he was the one who chose to spend that much money in the first place," his mom agreed.

"I don't like him and I don't trust him," Omega folded his arms. "I'm not going to make Delta choose but I don't want him that involved in my life. I don't want him to be telling me I need to turn down the furnace."

"That's very reasonable." His mom took a cookie off the plate. "Did you tell Delta any of that or did you just yell until he walked out?"

"Delta said we'd talk in the morning," Omega mumbled into his elbow.

"I can't hear you when you mumble," his mom said.

"I _said_ ," Omega yelled, and dug his nails into his arm until he could speak without screaming at the woman who'd forgive him anything, "Delta said we'd talk in the morning."

"That sounds like a good idea," his mom said at the same time his madrina said "Mijo, you're bleeding. Stop scratching yourself."

"My boyfriend hates me," Omega said, not stopping. For his boards Delta had wrapped Omega's nails in band-aids so he wouldn't scratch himself bloody. That was probably an automatic fail.

"You don't know that," Emily said. "He didn't say it, did he?"

"I scared him away," Omega reminded them, more harshly than he should have. He dug his nails in deeper, pulled down red streaks of punishment. Why couldn't he control himself?

"It doesn't sound like you did," his mom said, standing up. Omega wondered where she was going.

"I did," he insisted. "I got mad and Delta got out.

His madrina took his hands in hers, gently pulling them away from his own arms. "You got upset, and Delta gave you some space to calm down. You and he will talk in the morning and settle this, okay, mi nino?"

His mom came back, with the first-aid kit from the bathroom. "Can I stay here tonight?" he asked as she soaked a cotton ball in disinfectant. He knew what she would say.

"Of course," she said, like he knew she would. "Your room's still ready for you. Let me wrap you up first so you don't get blood everywhere."

"Thank you," he said, and Emily reached out to push his hair back.

"You always have a place here," she said. "Wherever you go."

Omega nodded. Price hadn't been able to pack up Delta's stuff fast enough. Omega half-suspected he was charging Delta to keep boxes of books in his attic. That sounded like something Price would do.

* * *

Omega woke up cold and confused.

He was no longer used to sleeping alone. He expected to wake curled around Delta, in their bed. Not in his childhood bed, his childhood room, and it took a minute for him to remember the important things. One, he had work today. Two, he might not have a boyfriend anymore.

But when he checked his phone, Gamma had sent him three memes and a story about coyotes, so things looked a little better. At least he'd have his best friend, no matter what happened.

Omega's mother was already awake and gone to school, but there was a breakfast burrito under a plate to keep warm for him, and a thermos of coffee. Regular coffee. He left her a note to thank her, and found he had enough time to unload and reload her dishwasher before he got in his car.

There was no time to think about Delta at work, never any time. Omega liked his job; it was simple. All he had to do was find the problem and remove it, preferably with power tools. Amputations were the easiest --simply cut where the diseased tissue ended. Tumors weren't much more complicated, though keeping everything in working order could be tricky. That was more patience than anything, measuring twice before cutting once. Sometimes a trauma came in, and that was more like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing, to be fashioned from cadaver bone and metal, held together with pins. Delta hated jigsaw puzzles. They were just pointless messes to him.

"Dr. Kimball," his boss said. "You're on deck today." He nodded in acknowledgment. There were no puzzles scheduled for today, or excisions, or simple chop jobs. Apparently Omega was supposed to let other people have a turn, a concept he rolled his eyes at, and he was supposed to be ready to operate should a complex trauma come in with no notice, something he could understand very well. Today was about checking in on patients who were recovering, or who didn't have numbers good enough for surgery, who might not survive the anesthesia. Nobody asked him about his bandage, hidden underneath his white coat. He spent half his shift being thankful, and the other half wondering if he was going to get to use his story about coyotes in the city.

It seemed to him that his patients were more cranky than usual. Well, he'd be cranky too if someone was telling him he wasn't good enough to get his foot cut off.

"Hey, Dr. Kimball," one of the nurses called after he narrowly escaped an old lady and her pictures of her ugly grandchildren. "Come get your picture in the paper. Make your momma proud."

His mother was already proud of him, but he walked over anyways. "What's up?"

"Hi, I'm Dylan Andrews, for the Cincinnati Enquirer." The woman extended her hand, and Omega shook it on reflex. "I'm working on a piece about the diabetes epidemic. Do you have time for a few questions?"

"Yes," Omega said, not seeing the harm. He did see an awful lot of diabetic patients, after all.

"Great! Is there somewhere we can sit down? It's just a few questions." Another one of the nurses pointed them to a currently empty waiting room, and they sat down with cups of hospital coffee. A distracted young man, introduced as Jax, hovered behind the reporter.

After the expected questions about his schooling and the statistics, Ms. Andrews tossed out one Omega didn't expect. "Dr. Kimball, honestly speaking. How many of these amputations have you seen that could have been avoided by lifestyle changes?"

Omega blinked at her for a few seconds. "None," he said, honestly.

"None, really?" Ms. Andrews repeated, and if Omega hadn't had such a shit night last night he would have picked up on her tone. "So you'd say there's no personal responsibility involved?

"Personal responsibility," he repeated, cracking his knuckles and then his neck. "See, that's an interesting thing. Because a lot of people who come in here, they've worked hard their entire lives, but since they don't have a degree or a cousin in HR, when the recession hit they lost their chance at a decent income. They've got all their wealth tied up in their homes that they lost when _that_ bubble burst. So now they're on food stamps and Medicaid, and they have people lining up to talk about a waste of taxpayer dollars, talk about lazy welfare queens, like people are _trying_ to make their toes rot off."

"So you're saying there needs to be more education? That we can't blame people for not knowing all their options?" Ms. Andrews looked like she was trying not to smile. Omega didn't know if he was being led into a trap. _Someone_ was.

"Fuck no," Omega said, and his hand might have come down a little hard on the table. "My patients know their options plenty. They can buy a meal for four people from KFC for twenty bucks or they can go to the store and buy the stuff to make it for thirty, forty bucks depending on sales. Because the cheapest way is to buy in bulk, but then you have to pay the money up front. And then take it all home, store it, and eat it before it gets bad. Don't forget they have to _cook_ it, which takes time and energy. My patients are _extremely_ good at math. They can eat fresh fruit, or they can keep the lights on. They can pay for their medicine or their heat. They can drink the juice, or save it for their grandkids. And then, in the middle of winter, they can read articles about how all they need to do is exercise more, when a gym membership is half their car insurance, there's six inches of snow on the ground, and their house is too full of people to swing a dead cat!"

Ms. Andrews was definitely smiling now. "So you're saying that nothing more can be done?"

"I'm saying that every foot I cut off, Medicaid pays seventy grand for. That would buy a lot of groceries. You want to end the epidemic? Stop assuming people are _lazy_ and need to be told what to do. Give them more money." Omega may have had a lot of patients who made bad choices, and somewhat less who carried the attention-seeking a bit too far, but so far nobody who was so lazy they just sat down, gave up, and let the legs rot off their bodies.

Ms. Andrews thanked him for his time, and for speaking frankly to her. Jax took his picture, advising him to "look angry," like that was ever hard.

"Just between you and me," Ms. Andrews said, as they were walking out the door, "I think your quotes will go very well with the prices from the grocery stores I've been collecting. Was that your experience growing up?"

Omega scowled. "My mother has been a kindergarten teacher my whole life. I didn't live that, but too many of her students did. Every year there were at least two parents that didn't understand other parents not showing up to the class picnic couldn't get the day off work."

"Your parents must be very proud of you," she said.

"I hope they are," he answered, because that was always so much easier than explaining about how he didn't have a father.

The rest of the day passed under a dreadful cloud. Gamma texted him six iterations of the same meme and a deconstruction of it. Someone did come in with a bimalleolar fracture requiring open reduction and internal fixation, so Omega got to spend almost an hour picking through meat for bone chips, always fun. He ended up clocking out forty-five minutes late. Delta ignored his apology text.

He found Delta in the reading corner they'd set up under the window in the living room. Delta was curled up in the round chair, reading a book, but he looked up when Omega came, and smiled.

Omega couldn't manage to smile back. "I'm sorry," he mumbled to the hall closet. "I'm so very sorry," he told his shoes, too wet to wear in the house.

"Come here," Delta said, his legs uncurled and his book nowhere in sight. His voice was quiet. His voice was impossible to resist.

Omega came, he always came when Delta called, and he dropped to his knees in front of Delta, to not be towering over him. Delta's eyes were so gentle, his fingers in Omega's hair so gentle.

"Come here," Delta said again, guiding Omega's head to rest on his knees. Omega closed his eyes and all he could feel was Delta's hand so soft in his hair, the softness of Delta's jeans under his cheek, all he could hear was Delta's quiet hum, like a computer fan slowing down. He inhaled Delta's scent more desperately than oxygen, needing the sweet mint and tiny green apples deep in his lungs. And for a few minutes, he let himself believe his mother and madrina were right, that this was not the end of everything.

"Oh, Omega," Delta said, and his fingers never stopped their combing. "What's all this about?"

Omega lifted his head to look Delta in the eye, or at least the frame of his glasses. "I do trust you to handle the budget," he said. "I do. I just didn't think you'd borrow money...when I had enough." He nuzzled the hollow of Delta's kneecap. "I'm not very good with surprises," he admitted.

"I should have told you when I did it." Delta's hands paused. "I'm sorry."

Omega tilted his head again, resting on Delta's knees once more. "I told you to handle it, and you did. It's all my fault. I'm sorry." It didn't seem enough.

But Delta said, "I forgive you."

Omega looked up at him, and he didn't deserve this, didn't deserve Delta. May he never get what he deserved. "This is your home," he said, because he wasn't going to act like what he did was acceptable. "And I made you feel unsafe and that's not okay."

Delta frowned down at him. " _When_?"

"Last night." Omega closed his eyes again, pulled away as far as he could make himself. Which was about four inches, but it's always the thought that counts. "When I scared you into leaving before I hurt you."

"I wasn't scared, Omega." Delta's palms cupped the back of his head, unbreakable as granite. "You didn't scare me. I just wanted to give you some space to calm down. I didn't think you'd hurt me. I don't think you'd ever hurt me." He guided Omega's head back to his lap. "I wasn't ignoring you. I was ignoring your behavior."

That didn't make any sense to Omega, the last part. But his madrina had been right. Delta just gave him space. "I'm sorry," he said again, raising his arms to hug Delta's hips.

"For what now?" Delta said. "What happened to your arm?"

Omega didn't want to tell Delta about digging chunks out of his own arm with his fingernails. Delta had seen him do it enough. "For telling you how you feel."

"Don't do it again," Delta said, sternly. He didn't ask about the bandage again, though. Delta stroked Omega's hair, and hummed like a computer fan, and let Omega doze in his lap until he had to stand up and make dinner.

* * *

Delta almost never reached for Omega first. Omega was okay with that, for the most part. He would ask Delta, Delta would say yes if he wanted to, no if he didn't. It didn't bother Omega much; Delta was comfortable saying no, said it as often as he said yes. Perhaps Omega was simply quicker on the draw.

A theory supported by the nights Delta reached out to him first.

They rarely went to bed at the same time, since Delta liked routine and Omega's schedule was irregular at best. But tonight, Delta followed Omega into the bedroom, a good hour before his usual bedtime. He sat on Omega's side of the bed while Omega brushed his teeth and plugged his phone in and threw his pants, salt-stained at the hems, in the hamper.

And when Omega stood on the side of the bed, Delta reached up and locked his hands behind Omega's head, and pulled him down into a kiss. Omega put one hand on the bed to steady himself, then one knee. Then Delta fell back and pulled Omega on top of himself, and they never stopped kissing.

Omega could kiss Delta forever.

Delta had other ideas, and he let go of Omega's neck to tug at his shirt until Omega got the idea. Omega sat up, pulled his shirt over his head, and tossed it in the general direction of the hamper before bending back down to kiss Delta's neck, right where he could feel Delta's pulse against his lips. He could have stayed right there until the heat-death of the universe, his mouth on Delta's jugular and his hand on Delta's chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart, feeling his own heart calming with Delta still close, not gone, not pushed away. His other hand hooked into the blanket, his fingers curled tight like he dared not hold Delta, tight enough, he fancied, to break bones. Omega knew just how much bones could take.

Delta let Omega take his comfort, rubbing circles down Omega's back. The closest he came to complaining was raising his hips to grind against Omega, more a gentle reminder than a true request to speed things along. Through cloth and skin and muscle Omega could feel Delta's bones, but that wasn't enough, there was too much in between them. He wanted Delta's skin against his, Delta's hands trapping his wrists, Delta holding him down where he couldn't hurt anyone.

"I need," he whispered against the underside of Delta's jaw, while Delta's nimble fingers, shaking now, attacked his pants. "D, I need."

"What Omega?" Delta embraced him again, hands cool against the fever-flush at the back of his neck. "What do you need?"

"You," Omega said, eyes closed, face tucked against Delta's shoulder. How could he say it? How could he lay that burden on Delta's shoulders? "I need you." He could feel Delta's heart, pressed so close to his own. Keeping him in check. Too needy, too much, to inflict on Delta. Too heavy for Delta's slender bones.

Delta nodded into Omega's hair. "Let me up," he whispered. Omega rolled over, onto his back, and Delta sat up next to him, ran his hand over Omega's chest. "I'm here," he said, shrugging out of his shirt, pulling his undershirt off -one of Omega's t-shirts, which made something in Omega's chest tighten. "I'm right here," Delta said again, his hand sliding down Omega's side and over his hip while Delta stood up and tugged both their pants off, first Omega's, then his own.

Omega let Delta nudge his legs apart, not too wide. He wanted Delta as close as possible, he never wanted Delta to let go. Delta settled between his knees, one hand on Omega's hip and the other flat on the bed. "How do you want me?" he asked.

Omega sat up and took Delta's glasses off, set them safely on the bedside table. "I don't care," he said, which really meant he wanted Delta to hold him back from hurting people again, he wanted Delta to run away so Omega could never hurt him again, he wanted Delta to never leave so Omega would never have to spend all night alone again. "Whatever makes me yours."

Delta's hand drifted up to Omega's neck, and Omega thought about a collar there, with a tag and a leash. But Delta leaned forward and found his balance, kissed Omega again, and Omega kissed him back like he'd die without it.

"Make it hurt," he whined into Delta's mouth. "Make it real."

Delta froze, pulled back a little. "Condom," he said, and it wasn't a question.

Omega nodded, and while Delta dug in the drawer for a condom, tried to think about Gamma's memes. Tried to think of something small and light, something that wouldn't break bones.

But then Delta was urging him to turn over, to tuck his knees under. Delta had one hand on Omega's hip and Omega could feel him circling his entrance. And then the first pierce, more surprise than pain. Delta could never hurt him, not even when he thrust swiftly, settled in deep without pausing. Omega choked on a sob, because it felt so good, all he could feel was Delta. Delta inside him, and Delta pressed against his back, Delta's hand on his cock and Delta's breath in his ear. Delta slamming into him hard and rough and just like he asked, and Omega could feel his eyes watering with how clean he felt, with only Delta in his hands and mouth, body and mind and heart.


	4. Chapter 4

After they were clean, Delta didn't return to the living room. Omega still clung to him like a child to a teddy bear, and Delta let him. He'd been so upset earlier when he came home, when they'd made love. Made love? Is that what Delta would call that? Omega had never asked Delta to make it hurt before. There were other times Delta was less than gentle with Omega, who was six feet of punk rock and could take anything Delta could give. Times when Omega told him he didn't mind the pain, or times when he told Delta to hurry up he couldn't wait, or times when he'd hid his discomfort from Delta until the next morning.

But never before had he asked Delta to make it hurt. Never before had he said the pain made it real. Delta combed his fingers through Omega's short hair, thinking about how upset Omega had been, how the first words out of his mouth had been "I'm sorry," how he'd dropped to his knees in front of Delta and begged forgiveness. That was a thing, in books and maybe on the television once or twice, but not a thing Delta knew actually happened.

Delta knew exactly when Omega fell asleep, Omega's head on his chest and arm around his waist and leg thrown over both of Delta's. When Omega was asleep, truly asleep, his full weight came down on top of Delta, as soft as Omega ever got. Delta liked this part, where Omega was heavy and warm on top of him, calming like nothing else ever was.

He'd been so upset. Did Omega really think Delta wasn't going to come back? Delta had said he would, but he didn't know if Omega heard him, not with how angry he had been. Not scary, though, never scary, not to Delta. He'd never seen Omega hurt someone, only seen how hard Omega tried not to hurt people. Omega touched Delta like he was made of glass, touched Caboose like he was made out of rubber, scooped up Theta and Theta always ran to him. Who thought Omega would hurt them? Who could be afraid of Omega?

He'd been so upset. Like Delta didn't live here, like Delta would ever leave him. And maybe Delta had fixed it --Delta _hoped_ he had fixed it, at least. But how to keep it from happening again? How to make Omega understand that Delta would never leave him, that Delta was so happy with him.

A normal person would have known. But Delta, as Price frequently reminded him, didn't know these things that came so easily to other people. Delta needed to be told what other people just knew. Price had hammered the necessity of study into Delta for as long as Delta could remember, with flash cards of cartoon faces and checklists updated every six months. So many things stored in a part of a normal brain Delta didn't have, a part that, to hear Price tell it, was destroyed by mercury.

But Price couldn't be right about that. Study after study after study failed to validate the theory, failed to draw any connection between thermisol and Delta's inability to get his boyfriend to understand how he wanted to stay with Omega the rest of his life.

It was so simple, so obvious. They needed to get married. How had Delta never thought of it before?

He needed to ask Omega to marry him. But properly, which meant he needed a ring and, oh, he didn't know how to do it. York would know how, probably. York knew all sorts of normal stuff.

"D?" Omega woke when Delta tried to slide out of the bed to text York. "Ev'rything ok?"

"Yes. Go back to sleep." Omega could pop in and out of sleep in two minutes, anywhere, any time, something Delta envied.

"Want me to let you up?" Omega asked.

Delta didn't hesitate. "No," he said, rubbing a thumb over Omega's eyebrow. Omega's eyes closed. "I'm not going anywhere."

* * *

York was already on the couch in the coffee shop when Delta came in, two cups on the table in front of him and his laptop perched on his knees, pecking at the keyboard like he didn't know how to type just fine. Delta came at him from his right and York lifted a hand in greeting before Delta settled on York's left.

"Omega still mad?" York asked. "Didn't hear from you yesterday."

"Not at me," Delta said, picking up his coffee. York always got them to make it perfect. Delta could say the exact same words and it still tasted better when York got it for him. That was a peculiarly York thing; he'd tested it with Omega and Caboose and Church.

"That's good, you sonovaBITCH!" York dragged both his hands down the screen. "No, no, baby, I didn't mean it. Don't do this to me baby, come back!"

"He was surprised." Delta took his own laptop out of his bag. "What did you do to my code?"

"Commented it, for one." York sighed at the error message. "The three-ways aren't working anymore."

"Howso?" Delta took another sip of his coffee and tapped his own computer, booting up Eclipse.

"How'd you surprise him?" York rubbed his bad eye with his knuckle. "Visually, instead of a T-junction it's just making a corner and one sad pipe."

Visuals were York's department, Delta never touched them. "He thought I was scared of him. Why would I be scared of him? He'd never hurt me."

"Because he thinks he's a bad boy," York said. "Which is stupid, he's a _doctor_. A surgeon. People trust him with their lives after meeting him twice. You'd think he would catch on that he's not actually scary."

"You say he's creepy all the time," Delta pointed out.

York shrugged. "It makes him happy, and I know he won't actually hurt you." He hesitated, then added, "And you know my door is always open."

"No it's not."

"Fine," York huffed. "My door may be locked but you will always be given a key. Also when something comes down the pipe and it comes to the faulty junction, it crashes the whole goddamn server."

"I want to marry Omega. I need your help."

York choked on his coffee. "What???"

Delta replayed what he had just said in his head. "I need you to help me ask him."

"That I can do," York said. "Okay. Sure. You want to marry ...Omega fucking Kimball. You, Delta, are sitting right here telling me you want a wedding."

"Not really," Delta admitted to his coffee cup. "I want to be married so I can give him a ring and he'll remember every time he looks at it that I'm not leaving him and I want to stay with him and he makes me happy and I promised him that in front of you and his sister and everyone important."

"Right, okay. Sure, that makes sense," York said, smiling at Delta so it wasn't sarcastic. "Do you have a ring?"

"That's what I need your help with." What did a man's wedding ring look like? Delta couldn't remember ever seeing one, except the boring thick plain ones TV characters made such big deals over. Was he really supposed to give Omega something so blank?

"Not my help," York said. "You want _Gamma's._ Gamma's known him since forever, he'll help you."

"Oh," Delta said, very quietly, and looked down at his coffee.

"I mean, I'll help you," York continued like he hadn't heard Delta at all. Maybe he hadn't. "But Gamma's going to know his taste better than me. I can help you with the rest. First you gotta ask his dad for permission. It's traditional. I think. It should be. You're asking him so yeah. Ask his dad for permission. No, wait, his mom, he doesn't have a dad. The important thing is that you ask his mom and probably his sister too."

"Why?" Delta set his coffee down. "Why do I need to ask them before I ask him?"

York waved his hand. "Sexist bullshit, mostly, but in this case the important thing is then they have warning when you drop this bomb on him. Plus it makes you look traditional... right, the Kimball family is not exactly great fans of pointless tradition. Okay. You tell them ahead of time, so when he explodes they have warning."

Exploding? Delta hadn't thought of that. "You think he'll not like it? He'll say no?"

"Delta, he thinks the sun shines out your ass," York said. "He's going to die of happiness on the spot. But you just said he's bad with surprises, even happy ones like yesterday. And there's no way this isn't going to be a surprise."

"It wasn't happy yesterday," Delta corrected York absently, composing a text message for Gamma. Was it rude to ask him to reply in actual words? "I told him I borrowed money from Price."

"Wait, _what?_ Delta, back up." York waited until Delta was done with his phone. "I thought you surprised him yesterday by not being scared of him. All you said before was that he was real mad and you were giving him space to cool off."

"Yes. He was very angry because I borrowed the money for my half of the bills from Price. Omega doesn't really like him, you know."

York buried his head in his hands, mumbled something into his palms. "If you need money," he started.

"I don't." Delta reached out and touched York's knee. "Omega can cover it all but I wanted to. You know."

"Yeah, I know, D," York looked up at him. "You want to marry him. You want to be his partner."

"Do you think that will make him say no? Omega thinks Price is horrible, he won't explain why, he just becomes angry and starts yelling."

"Delta," York said, after a mediative pause, "you are like the brother I got instead of the puppy I asked for. But you gotta have this conversation with Omega. Maybe not alone, but not without him."

Delta took a long sip of his coffee. It was pleasantly warm now, soon it would be cold and gross. "Maybe Omega doesn't understand everything I can't do."

"You can do anything you want to," York said. Delta gave him his best speaking look, and York added, "It might take more effort than it's worth, and you might need help, but you _can._ No matter what Price says."

"I'll ask him," Delta said. "We're supposed to meet him for dinner for my birthday. They can figure it out then."

"Delta. Delta, Delta, Delta." York stopped, searching for words. "Whatever happens that night, remember I love you and I will always protect you."

* * *

Price picked the restaurant. Since he was paying, it was only fair. It was a nice restaurant, the kind with a dress code Price spelled out in detail to Delta when he called to tell him the name, a bare hour before they had to leave. Omega didn't say a word of complaint as he shrugged on his pinstriped dress shirt, as he looked for the only tie he owned. It was gunmetal grey, the color of a scalpel, at least according to Omega. Delta thought it made his eyes look cold, like ice on a hot day.

They had to stop at Tex's on the way so she could tie their ties. Theta hugged Delta and wished him a happy birthday, North had a gift from the three of them for Delta. Tex tied their ties and offered them a shot of whiskey.

Omega was driving, so he turned it down. Delta had one, to be polite, and because Tex had excellent taste in whiskey. Theta bounced up and down until Delta opened his present; two books he'd been eying online and a rubix puzzle. The rubix puzzle had twenty sides and Tex said, low in Delta's ear, that Theta had bought it with his own money. Delta hugged Theta again, and Theta smiled, and Omega squeezed Delta's hand.

Then they had to go, or they would be late. It was hard to leave Tex's house, which was bright and warm and always safe and smelling vaguely like apples. Delta wished they could stay and eat spaghetti with Theta, and Tex told them they were of course invited to come back after dinner, for cards with Church and Tucker, Caboose and South.

"No pressure," North said, his hand hovering on Delta's shoulder, not quite touching. "I know how family dinners can go. But you are always welcome."

And then they drove, downtown to some place Price had picked out. Delta had never heard of it before today. He hated going to new restaurants; especially when he couldn't look at the menu before. He didn't even know if they had Coke or Pepsi.

Omega parked, and opened Delta's door for him. Delta looked up at him. "Please," he said. He'd meant to say it before but there had been no time, the words had never come right. "Can you, for one night."

"I'll try," Omega promised, because Omega always understood Delta. He helped Delta out of the car, because Delta wasn't getting out of the car any other way, and then he brushed Delta's hair back from his face and kissed him. Delta melted against him; Omega was warm in the winter air, and when he kissed him, Delta could almost forget where they were, who was waiting for him.

Price was already there and sitting at a table, a bottle of wine and glasses waiting for them. Delta didn't want to drink wine, he hated it. He just wanted a Coke, something familiar in this place of tasteful pink and inconsistent lighting and Price's silver eyes. Something he didn't have to worry about. And when the waiter uncorked the bottle, Delta put his hand over his glass.

"I want a soda," he said. "Please."

"Delta," Price said lowly. "That is hardly appropriate."

Omega turned to the waiter and smiled, brittle as broken glass, and Delta could see his knuckles white in his lap. "Could we have something non-alcoholic?" he asked. "Perhaps a pair of Cokes?"

"Absolutely, sir," the waiter said, looking at Delta. Delta couldn't remember what he was supposed to look like, so he looked at the table instead.

"I'm on-call later," Omega said to Price, which was either a lie or Delta had forgotten. "Zero-tolerance policy, you understand."

"Of course," Price said, the corners of his mouth turning up. "Delta. How is school going?"

"Good," Delta said, quietly. "We're getting new computers, they say."

Price nodded. "How many classes are you taking?"

"None," Delta said, since all he had left was the defense.

"None?" Price repeated. "How do you expect to graduate on time if you're not actually taking classes?"

"There's more to it than classes," Delta said, pausing to gather his thoughts, to present an appropriate face for public disagreement.

Before he could explain, though, Price interrupted. "I did go to graduate school, Delta," he said. He was not smiling. Under the table, Omega reached for Delta's hand but he didn't say anything. "I suppose I'll be disappointed if I ask you how your thesis is coming along."

It was all but done, waiting only for the final approval from his adviser, but he didn't really want to hear how that would manage to disappoint Price.

"How is your work, Omega?" Price asked, when Delta didn’t say anything.

Delta expected Omega to be enthusiastic about amputations, like he usually was with people who weren't his family. He didn't expect Omega to talk about it like he did with his mother, to talk about cutting cancer out before it killed someone, seeing someone with a prosthetic leg walk again. But Omega did neither, just tipped his chin down and said, "Fine. Materially and spiritually rewarding."

"So you're helping a lot of people then?" Price continued. "Putting all those years of schooling to good use?"

"Oh, I don't know how much school was really necessary for this. All I do is cut on the lines. Thank you," he added to the waiter, who'd returned with drinks and menus.

"I'll give you a minute," the waiter said quietly, smiling at Delta. Delta didn't know what to do.

"I saw you in the paper," Price said. Delta had no idea what he was talking about. "In the interview about diabetes."

Omega shrugged. "Sure, I talked to the lady about it," he said. "Didn't read it though."

Price's face was unreadable. "Your father must be very proud. I hope one day Delta will give me a reason to be as proud of him."

Delta almost stood up and walked out. But he could no longer feel his feet, no longer remember how to move. Omega never talked about his father, in the way that spoke loud enough for York to remark on it. "You should be proud of him already," Omega said, and his hand was very tight around Delta's.

"Why?" Price tipped his head, and that meant something, something Delta couldn't remember. "Oh. You mean the autism."

Delta stopped breathing.

He'd never told Omega. Never mentioned it. At first he assumed Omega knew, because of Church, because Tex told him everything, because it was tattoo'ed on his goddamn forehead. And then Tex had asked him if he'd told Omega yet, and said she would do it if he didn't want to, and promised him that it wouldn't matter to him. And Delta had said no, he would do it himself, but then Omega had finals, and then he spent so long trying to find the words he had his own finals, and then Gamma had shown up on their doorstep because his roommate went crazy and tried to kill him and then it had just been...awkward. And he'd never told Omega that he was defective and now Omega was going to leave him and wasn't there a rule about being nice to people on their birthdays?

He couldn't even pretend to look at them anymore. Delta tried to tug his hand free but Omega didn't let go. Omega squeezed tighter. Omega's sleeve covered the tiger on his arm, but Delta knew it was there, snarling at Price. He couldn't see the gold dragon on his own ankle, but it was there all the same, fiercely protective. If only the animals were real and not mere ink.

"He never told you? I suppose it never occurred to him you'd want to know. He's quite bad at that, after all. Quite selfish. His mother couldn't handle it and left him. I can't really blame her, since he didn't shown affection to anyone until he was ten. It was quite difficult to raise him alone, you know. My career never recovered. He had so many difficulties, and he was always trying to manipulate people into leaving him to his maladaptive behaviors." Price shook his head and chuckled. "I used to wonder if he'd ever be able to live independently. You know why, since you're doing it now, how unreasonable he can be."

The tablecloth blurred as Delta's eyes filled with tears, but he stubbornly blinked them away. He wished he had his mouse. He wished he'd never been born. Delta pulled his hand free of Omega's and hugged himself, cupping his elbows where no-one could see.

Omega did not look happy. He spread his hands on the table and leaned forward just a little bit. "You've spent the last twenty years blaming him for everything wrong in your life," he said. "When really he's been a gift. All this time you've been telling him that if he was just quieter, more responsible, smarter, if he just tried harder, everything would be okay. And whenever anything goes wrong, honest mistake or bad luck, you're quick to blame him for being lazy or stubborn, telling him that it's because he's not good enough. You think you're being subtle about it, but you're really not.”

Delta didn’t dare look at Price’s face. There wasn’t a point. He wouldn’t understand what he was looking at.

“You're exactly like every other piece of shit father on this planet and my mother has taught the children of a hundred parents like you." Omega's voice was flat, even, almost monotone, and he didn't even blink. "And you've been telling everyone else that it's his fault, that you don't have the time or the money because you're taking care of him. You tell everyone how hopeless he is, how much work he is, how ungrateful and unappreciative he is. How unlovable he is. And you expect them to hail you as a martyr, because that's the only respect you'll ever get. But you're wrong.”

Why wasn’t Price saying anything? Delta didn’t know what was happening, but he didn’t dare look away from Omega, didn’t dare look at Price. If he didn’t have the right expression, if he didn’t look at the right spot, Price would make a scene.

“You have no friends, because they don't care to listen to your constant whining, not because of him. Women mistrust you because any man who speaks of his son this way is not one they want to be involved with, not because of him. And anyone from the medical profession waits until your back is turned and writes down in his chart, underlined twice, that bad parenting is the real problem. To protect your own ego you tell yourself and Delta and everyone else it's Delta's fault. But you know the truth. There's nothing wrong with Delta. It's all you."

"Trust me, he has autism," Price said though Delta barely heard him. "He was diagnosed at three. He may have been fooling you all this time into thinking he's normal, but I spent a lot of time and money fixing what could be fixed, and there will always be something wrong with him."

"So he's autistic," Omega said, reaching for Delta above the table. "There's nothing wrong with him." Delta let Omega take his hand. This wasn't happening. This was some fantasy his mind concocted to deal with the unpleasant reality. "Come on Delta, let's get out of here."

If Price said anything, Delta didn't hear it as Omega coaxed him out of his seat and out of the restaurant, into the darkness of the parking lot bushes.

"Are you okay?" Omega's hand was on the side of Delta's face, and it burned like fire and Delta leaned into it. "I'm sorry. I can't let him say those things to you. I'm sorry. Do you want me to go back in and punch him? I will."

Delta felt the tears finally spill. "It's all true," he said. "I'm sorry. I never told you. I'm sorry. I-"

Omega cut him off, wrapped him up tightly in his arms. "It's not true. Nothing he said was true."

"I am," Delta said, his voice muffled by Omega's shoulder. "I never told you and I am."

Omega ran his hand through Delta's hair. "You're exactly the same person you were this morning," he said. "It doesn't matter. You're the same. You are still the same man I woke up next to this morning and the man I want to sleep with tonight, okay? Nothing you say is going to change that."

Delta nodded against Omega's shoulder. He was getting snot all over Omega's shirt. Omega didn't like this shirt anyways. This whole night was stupid and confusing and he wanted to go home.

"Hey, let's get dinner and go home," Omega said. "Burgers or tacos?"

"I don’t care," Delta whispered.

"Alright. Sure you don't want me to punch him?"

* * *

Delta curled in his corner of the couch, and Omega balanced his nachos on the other arm. There was an entire cushion between them. It was almost normal, except nothing would be normal any more. Not a month ago Omega had said he hated surprises. What could have been more surprising than this? "I'm sorry," Delta said, half to himself. "I know you don't like surprises."

"It wasn't a surprise," Omega said, but the whole ride home his hands had been white-knuckled on the steering wheel, and even now Delta could see a muscle in his jaw twitch. He knew what anger looked like.

"Why?" Delta said, when what he meant was _why are you lying to me?_

"I've always known." Omega stood and gathered up their garbage, took it to the can. "Caboose told me a long time ago, when he asked if I would tutor you. He said his autistic friend needed help with chemistry and didn't want to go through the accessibility office like he did."

"Oh." What else was there to say? Caboose had never told Delta any of that. Caboose had just shown up one day and said his friend would help Delta, and while Delta knew Omega worked in the accessibility office, knew Omega had been Caboose’s notetaker, it had never occurred to him that Caboose would tell Omega. It had never occurred to him to tell Caboose not to tell anyone.

Omega sat in the middle of the couch when he came back, close enough for Delta to feel his warmth. "You don't talk like you used to."

Delta couldn't follow that. "What?"

Omega shrugged, and if there was a bit of a growl in his voice, Delta didn't think anything of it. "You used to ramble. All the time. About your classes, about your code, about video game updates. And then you stopped."

"I didn't want to be obnoxious," Delta said to his feet, which were freezing. Price had told him not to, told him not to exhaust Omega like Price had become inured long ago.

"I want to live with you," Omega said, and here it was coming, here was the part where Omega said it wasn't going to work. "I want to hear you talk. About what you like."

Delta didn't know what to say, so he fell back on "Sorry." For some reason, his nose was cold, which was a ridiculous thing to be focusing on right now. But it was, and it was rather distracting.

"Don't be sorry," Omega said. "Just know that you're not obnoxious. I'm not demanding a twenty-minute speech on blockstates. Unless you have one."

Delta did not. He had cold hands and cold ears and he leaned forward, into Omega's side. Omega was shaking, and his arm was tight around Delta's back, and Delta wondered if he was afraid.

Delta was not afraid. He was cold, and slightly confused, and more than a little tired. But it didn't seem like Omega was kicking him out, and if he did Delta could just call York so really. This wasn't a problem and there was nothing to be upset about.

Omega smelled like oak and nutmeg and something uniquely Omega, and Delta could identify him in the dark and the silence. Delta's sheets smelled like him, and sometimes punk rock leaked outside Omega's ridiculously huge headphones, and there were dinosaur chicken nuggets in the freezer next to Delta's fruit bars. He was wearing one of Omega's t-shirts next to his skin and Omega had borrowed his shaving cream because he'd run out of his own and sometimes they couldn't remember whose coffee was whose. Delta couldn't imagine extricating Omega from his life.

"I'm cold," he said, sliding closer, throwing his legs over Omega's. Omega pulled him closer, set Delta on his lap properly, let Delta's head lay on his shoulder. Delta liked when Omega held him like this, safe and close. Price had never so much as hugged him, as far as he could remember. York's mother had hugged him more than Price.

Price had never so much as raised his voice to Delta. Even punishments were few and far between. Omega hit walls and other people and sliced people open for fun and Delta never felt safer than with Omega's thumb rubbing circles on his hip.

He wanted to tell Omega...that was the problem. He didn't know what he wanted to tell Omega. Omega was so quiet, so still, and Delta didn't know why. Didn't know what he had done wrong, or if Omega was mad at something else, or if Omega wasn't mad at all. And he didn't want to make Omega angrier. If Omega was angry at all. To make Omega angry was to risk, to risk...

Delta wasn't sure what he was afraid of. Except Omega might put him down, and he didn't want that. So instead of saying something and maybe saying the wrong thing, Delta closed his eyes and turned his face into Omega's neck and hoped he didn't mind Delta's cold nose.

Omega turned Delta's face up with a hand on his jaw gentle as anything, pressed a kiss to Delta's lips. That was nice. Omega's hands on him were nice, and he slid his own hands in Omega's hair. He wanted this, Delta realized as Omega kissed him again, deep and sweet and tasting like iron-rage. He wanted Omega, he wanted sex with Omega. That would make him feel better, and when Omega pulled back to breathe, Delta murmured "Bed," against his lips.

Omega carried him to the bed, laid him down and covered him with his own body. "How did you know?" Delta asked, coming his fingers through the short hairs at the nape of Omega's neck. "How do you always know?"

"I'm paying attention," Omega said, kissing behind Delta's ear, flicking the buttons of his shirt open. He had a lot of practice at that, and his hands were always steady. "Tell me what you want. Tell me what you don't want. Talk to me, Delta."

"I...I don't know know," Delta admitted as Omega sucked on his neck. "Everything. Nothing. I don't know. You." Giving directions was not usually a large component of their sexual activities. Full sentences were not usually a large component of their sexual activities. He pushed his hips against Omega instead, his half-hard cock slipping easily in the heat between Omega's thighs.

"Okay, okay," Omega said, kissing down Delta's throat with every plosive. "We'll figure it out. Just let me hear you."

Delta nodded, then said, "Okay. Okay." His hands were wrapped in Omega's shirt, and he probably should let go, return the favor and strip Omega out of his clothes, but at the moment that sounded like a fate worse than...like if he let go, Omega would dissolve into smoke.

Not leave him. Delta had to trust that much, that Omega wouldn't leave him if he had a choice.

"Why are you wearing so many _clothes,_ " Omega demanded, mouthing at Delta's collarbone.

"I don't, I don't know." Delta had forgotten what he was supposed to do with his hands, and he tried to reach for Omega at the same time Omega tried to push Delta's shirt off, and Delta lost track of what exactly was happening until Omega swore and pushed the hem of his shirt up and away from Delta's face. His arms were tangled in two different shirts above his head, his glasses were askew, and his hair was half-bound in his collar still. Delta did not want to deal with this. He just wanted Omega to fix things.

Omega lifted Delta's glasses off his face and set them on the nightstand. "This works," he said, bending down to lick all the places he knew made Delta squirm. "Now I can take care of you and you won't..." He trailed off, distracted by Delta's nipple or maybe the heartbeat under it. "You'll have to _tell_ me if you like it."

Delta whined, tried to get some leverage with his shoulders, tried to thrust up against Omega who was moving back. "Be nice to me," he begged.

"I fully intend to," Omega replied, sliding Delta's zipper down tooth by tooth. "You want my help to get your arms free, just say the word," he continued, peeling the rest of Delta's clothes off slowly, far too slowly, and Delta tried to glare at him but Omega was thoroughly distracted by kissing the red lines the elastic left on Delta's hip. "I don't think you need it though," he continued.

And maybe Delta didn't, but it was nice to not worry about what he should do with his hands while Omega kissed across his hips and up his length. "Please," he begged, and he didn't know what for, while Omega licked the head, sucked it into his mouth. "Please, O _mega-a!"_

Omega pulled off with a pop. "Please what?"

"You hate this," Delta managed, struggling to sit up while Omega stroked him lazily.

"It's your birthday," Omega reminded him, throwing an arm across Delta's stomach, holding him in place. Delta stopped moving, obediently. "Special occasion." He went back down on Delta, the sensation hot and tight, and when Omega hummed inexpertly Delta couldn't do anything but throw his head back and pull his arms over his face.

He was still tangled in his shirt though, and Omega's shirt he'd worn under it, and with the light blocked out all he could smell was Omega's scent, all he could hear was Omega's breath, all he could feel was Omega's mouth around his cock and Omega's hand on his thigh and Omega's shoulder under his knee. His whole world was Omega, breaking over him in waves, building higher and higher as Omega swallowed hot and deep.

But before the crest came white and strong, Omega pulled off, removed his hands from Delta entirely. "Still with me?" Delta heard him ask, as if very far away.

"Yeah," Delta said, and he tried to reach for Omega, who was digging around in the bedside drawer, but his arms were still tangled. Delta stretched out a foot but couldn't quite reach. He could have moved, but that wasn't what Omega had asked for. "Omega, please, touch me. Please," he asked Omega's back, as his boyfriend stripped quickly. Delta didn't like how that sounded, too much like a sob, and he tried again. "Please, Omega. Touch me. Please." That just sounded even closer to crying, and he did it one more time, but it was the worst of all, "Omega, please, now."

"It's okay, it's okay," Omega said, brushing Delta's hair back. "I'm right here." His hands were on Delta's shoulders, his knees on either side of Delta's hips. "I got you," he said and Delta could have lifted his arms, pulled Omega down but he was all tied up still and had to wait for Omega to do it himself, try to beg with his body.

And either he did it right or Omega knew what he wanted, because Omega dropped to his elbows above Delta, skin touching skin all the way down, warm and strong and Omega's fingers tracing over Delta's ribs. "I've got you," Omega said, and then he was kissing Delta and Delta didn't realize how afraid he was until the fear was gone. What was there to be afraid of when Omega was on top of him, surrounding him, protecting him? What did anything matter when he had this?

Delta thought, if only Omega would stay so close, nothing could ever hurt him.

But then the reverse of the situation hit him. If he lost Omega, what did he have? When his own family wouldn't have anything to do with him? Where would he go? "Please," Delta pleaded. "Please, please, please."

"I've got you," Omega said again, and he shifted back. Delta's cock was enveloped in tight heat, and Delta muffled his scream against Omega's shoulder. "It's okay," he said, and only now could Delta feel the way he was still shaking, only now could Delta kiss away the sweat on Omega's temple. Only now did Delta realize Omega was just as upset as he was and he was such a terrible boyfriend. "Let me keep you safe," Omega whispered, rolling his hips, and Delta let him. "Let me do the work. Let me take care of you."

Delta was tired, so tired, and he didn't want to think and Omega had asked, so he let him for once. He didn't worry about if this was fair and equal, not when Omega was grinding down against him, not when Omega wouldn't let Delta get any leverage to thrust back. Delta closed his eyes and let Omega take him into his body, let himself be kept safe. Just for now.

And after, after Omega cleaned him off and untangled him from his shirt (it was the cuff-links that had trapped him,) Delta rolled into Omega's side where the tigers could wrap him in safety and laid his head on Omega's shoulder and said very quietly, "thank you."

And very quietly, "I'm sorry."

"For what, sparkles," Omega said, and his grip on Delta was firm, but it was the farthest thing from rough.


	5. Chapter 5

Omega woke before Delta, and for a minute he watched Delta sleep. There was a glass on the nightstand there hadn't been before, dried tears on Delta's face and they looked like failure. How had Omega slept through that?

The same way he'd watched what Price did to Delta for years. The same way he'd not paid enough attention, ignored every sign. He'd done exactly what Price wanted, he'd assumed that Delta was different in occasionally inconvenient ways. How could Omega have been so stupid? Tex was right, Omega was no knight in shining armor.

He couldn't stay next to Delta, he didn't deserve to be next to Delta. He didn't deserve to be in the same room as Delta, not when he stood by and let it happen. There was only one place he could go, only one person who could help.

When he pulled into his mother's driveway an hour later, he saw his madrina's car, and he almost smiled. His mother worked with children, but Emily worked with adults. Between the two of them, they would know what to do. Hopefully it wouldn't involve neurosurgery, though.

He opened the kitchen door and instantly smelled cookies. "Omega?" his mother asked, holding a cookie sheet in her hand, her hair purple today. "Honey, what did you do?"

"Nothing," Omega said, sitting at the table. He folded his arms on it, the tigers looking more unhappy than usual. "I wish I had. Then I could _fix_ this!"

"Step back, Meg," Emily said, sitting next to him in a cloud of old lady perfume and hospital smells. Omega spent half his life in the damn hospital and he still didn't know what that smell was. "What didn't you do?"

"Delta got hurt," Omega said, dropping his head on his folded arms.

"I'll get my purse. What hospital?" Emily said, at the same time Kimball said, "Let me just turn the oven off and wrap up some of these cookies."

"Not like that," Omega said into the tabletop. "Not where you can see."

"Meg." His mom sat on the other side, put a hand on his shoulder. "Omega. What happened?"

"We went to dinner for his birthday." Omega stood up, and they let him pace. "And Price picked a place he knew Delta would hate, and picked out his clothes for him because apparently he doesn't trust Delta to do it himself which is _stupid!"_ He shook his head. "And that's before we even got there!"

"What happened when you arrived?"

Omega shook his head again. "It was the kind of place Delta hates, where you can't see and you can hear everyone. And Price made fun of him because he didn't want alcohol. I don't know why he didn't want any, anything with Price involved needs alcohol to be survivable, but Delta said no and Price said that wasn't appropriate. How is not drinking not appropriate?"

"It's fine," Emily said. "I don't know why Price wanted him to drink."

"Then Price started digging into him, and just." Omega sat down again, in between them. "It was horrible. He about told Delta that he expected Delta to flunk out of his program, wouldn't even listen when Delta told him he wasn't even close. And then Price started talking to me and using _me_ to cut Delta down more, and I think Delta didn't get it. But I did and I wanted to snap his neck."

"I'm glad you didn't," his mom said, rubbing his shoulder again. "I don't want to visit you in prison."

"I didn't tell you the worst part," Omega muttered darkly. "Then he started just tearing into Delta. Telling me how Delta was selfish and manipulative and unreasonable. And you know him, Mom. You know Delta. He's none of those things! Price told him his mother left him because he didn't love her enough and that was practically a footnote to how terrible it is to live with Delta!"

"Omega," his mom said, but she didn't sound angry. "Oh, Omega."

"He _hurt_ Delta," Omega said, and he sounded like a child to his own ears. "Why did he hurt Delta like that? I thought I was going to have to carry him out, and he was crying, and when we got home he was just so quiet. So quiet. But he kept looking at me and...I wanted to go set Price on fire but I couldn't leave him alone. He was just. Afraid."

"Mijo," Emily said, and then they were both hugging him. Omega was fairly certain nobody had ever hugged Delta like this.

"Delta's always afraid now." Omega's voice was thick, with rage or something else. "He'd be better off without him. Price is cruel and sadistic and he takes every opportunity to demean Delta and tell him he's worthless and he's just so horrible. Price is worse than the hitting kind, at least then everyone can see how wrong it is."

"Meg, one kind of abuse isn't better or worse than another," his mom said softly.

"So you agree with me!" Omega stood up, burning with the desire to kill Price, too hot to sit still. "He's abusing Delta and Delta doesn't even realize it!"

"Step back, Meg," his mom said as he measured the paces to the sink. "What do you mean?"

"Price keeps telling Delta that he's helping. Because Delta doesn't know better and Price does. Because he's a psychologist." Omega sat back down. "He's a terrible one," he said to his tigers. "How do I rescue him?"

His madrina sat down next to him. "Sometimes, tigrecito, there's nothing more you can do. You can't make Delta cut his father off."

"Cancer must be cut out," Omega muttered. "Anyways, Delta doesn't even realize that Price is way out of line. Price broke him."

He could feel them exchanging a look over his head. "You can't put him back together," his mom said, her hand on his wrist like shackles.

Omega couldn't quite swallow down the growl as he stood up, rage buzzing under his skin. "That's what I do," he said, louder than he meant. A lot louder. "I fix people! Why can't I fix him? I fix people all goddamn day, why can't I fix the one who matters?"

Omega flipped the table. It made perfect sense. It was the only punctuation such a sentence deserved.

"Ay, mi pequeño heroe, siempre queriendo salvar a todo el mundo," Emily said, shaking her head. "You can _help_ him, but this he needs to do himself."

"He doesn't even know what's wrong," Omega said again, righting the table under his mother's frown. "What do I do?"

Omega honestly expected them to have an answer.

* * *

Omega was late, an hour at least. Five more minutes wouldn't matter in the locker room, changing into his scrubs. Punching the wall hard enough to break his hand, though. That would matter. That could almost be an excuse to be late. Except the hole in the wall would give him away. And Sarge would know from looking how long it had been. No, he was just going to get fired. That's what happened when you were an hour late and missed the start of surgery, right? Hell. Maybe he missed the whole thing.

" _There_ you are," came Simmons' voice, familiar and most unwelcome. "Where the hell have you been?"

"Not here," Omega growled, pushing past Simmons, heading for the door. He didn't have anywhere to go, exactly, but he didn't want to stay here.

"Hey." Simmons grabbed his arm. "We were _worried_ about you, jackass. Grif's been glued to the police scanner and Donut's about ready to hit the pavement."

"I'm here now," Omega said, trying to shrug Simmons off.

"Donut was sure you'd passed out, hit your head, and died," Simmons continued, to add to the guilt. "He said nothing short of that would keep you from work."

"My mom made cookies, okay?" Simmons' eyes were unreadable behind his glasses. "My mom makes great cookies."

"Whatever, dude," Simmons said, letting go. "Anyways, Kavinsky decided that he'd rather have breakfast than, you know, not die. So his surgery was cancelled. You didn't miss anything."

"We're not going to let him roll the dice?" Omega asked.

"Nah, Sarge won't let us. Something about interrupting the gasman's crossword. You know. We're not allowed to have fun."

"Where is Sarge, anyways?

"Trauma came in." Simmons shrugged. "No cancer, so not my department. You got about fifteen minutes before we get to go scrape Chair-knee's shinbone clean. Coffee?"

"Czerny," Omega corrected absently. "But I'm late."

Simmons shrugged again. "Trust me. You are so late that all they care about is that you're not bleeding. You're fine. And I doubt the dude's going to have enough bone to save under the tumor, so you'll get to cut his leg off. Amputations always cheer you up."

Omega smirked. "They do. I'm very good at them."

Simmons reached up and clapped him on the shoulder. "And we thank the Lord every day that you use your powers to benefit humankind. Let's go scrub in."

* * *

Two hours later, once Czerny was down a leg and Omega had washed off the blood and Simmons had headed off to another patient, one of the nurses flagged him down. "Your sister's here," she said. "Says she needs to talk to you. Waiting room two."

Omega was in the room almost before the nurse finished speaking. "Is Theta alright?" he asked Tex.

"Theta's fine." Tex wasn't alone; York was sitting next to her, and she was holding his hand. York was very pale. What was he doing here?

"Meg," Tex said. "Come sit down." Omega blinked at her, but she refused to say anything else until he'd pulled up a chair and sat in front of her, his knees on either side of hers and his folded hands dangling between them. "Delta was brought in earlier."

"Okay, so why isn't he with you?" Omega could feel his eyebrows making the confused look. "Is he in the cafeteria? Because I get a discount, he should have waited for me."

"Someone cut his fucking leg off," York said. His hand was very tight around Tex's.

"That doesn't make any sense. Why would they do that? He doesn't have cancer or peripheral vascular disease or...any indication. You're not making any sense. They wouldn't amputate a leg for no reason."

Tex drew a deep breath. "Omega. Someone broke into your apartment, tied him to your chair, cut off his leg with your kitchen knives, and cauterized it with your frying pan.

"It's not my frying pan," Omega said, because clearly that was the most important issue. "Or my knives. He does most of the cooking, you know."

"York found him in a pool of blood," Tex continued like Omega hadn't said a word. "Called an ambulance to bring him here."

Oh, that seemed simple enough. "Did you bring the leg? I bet I can put it back on. If I can't Sarge can, he can fix anything."

"I didn't think you'd be allowed to," York said slowly. "And anyways, it was gone when I got there. We were supposed to meet our advisor. I'm glad she's flexible. Why are you so calm?"

Tex looked at York, tilted her head, and Omega knew there was something else she had to tell him. Something worse. Tex let go of York's hand and took both Omega's in her own. "When they brought him here, they called Price. Price told them he thinks you did it. The cops said that until Delta wakes up and tells them different, you can't see him."

Omega was very calm as he stood up and headed to the door. He was very calmly going to go find Price and snap his neck. Except Tex was hanging onto him and wouldn't let go, even when he kicked the chair over. Someone was yelling, demanding to be let go. Omega only realized it was himself when York yelped as he ducked the magazine Omega threw.

"Omega!" Tex said, and from the sound of it, not for the first time. She pulled him into something that was part bear hug, part collar tie. "Omega we know that's bullshit. But it has to be Delta that tells them, all right?"

"I'll stay with him, so he's not alone with Price," York promised. "And if he tries to sign a DNR or something, I'll tackle him."

"I'm going to kill him," Omega said, very calmly. "I am going to slice his femoral artery and paint the ceiling with his _blood_!"

"Go," Tex told York, pulling Omega closer. Omega hit her. She didn't let him go. He hit her again and again, and she held him closer. He begged her to let him go, begged her to take him to Delta. And when that didn't work, he cursed her out for lying to him, her and York both for this sick, sick joke.

That had an effect, almost. She hugged him tighter, and just said, "Meg, I'm so sorry." And it became real when he jabbed her in the ribs. She grunted when it connected, but she didn't even try to stop him. "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't know anything else. I'm sorry."

"Dr. Kimball," Sarge said form the doorway. Omega didn't know how long he'd been standing there. "Can I borrow you for a consult?"

Omega wiped his eyes. It probably didn't help. "Yes. Yes. Work. Right."

Sarge stepped into the room and shut the door. Tex became very interested in her phone. "Patient is a twenty-six year old male who came in with traumatic amputation of the lower left leg."

"You're talking about Delta," Omega said, flatly. Flat was about all he could manage.

"I'm not talking about Delta, because the patient's father is a jackass who wants no information about the patient being released to anyone other than the medical staff. Capiche?"

"Sure. Yeah." Omega tried to muster something other than sullen anger. Sarge didn't deserve it. Sarge was taking a great risk here.

"Patient is out of surgery, still hasn't quite come around, but that's to be expected. I came right to you. Physically the patient should be okay. Trauma, not pvd, you know how that goes."

"Thank you," Omega gritted.

Sarge winced. "Don't pretend to be anything less than the murderously angry I know you are, alright? Before you rupture something. And go home. We'll figure out something to cover your shifts."

"No," Omega growled.

"I have now had the pleasure of knowing Aiden Price for ten whole minutes, and I wish to introduce him to my shotgun more than any other patient or parent of patient I have seen in the last year and a half. I know you didn't do this, and he knows you didn't do this, but he's telling everyone that you did it just to make your life difficult."

"Do they believe him?"

"That doesn't matter." Sarge looked at Tex. "Take him home, because if he sees that ass, well. You've met Dr. Kimball. He'll give him what he deserves and I can't sweep that much blood under the rug."

"I can't leave him," Omega insisted. "I'll stay here."

Sarge put his hands on Omega's shoulders. There was no blood on them. "Do you trust me, son?"

"Of course."

" _Go home_. Let Delta ask for you. I know how people like Price work, and I know how he will spin it if you push your way in there. Pack up some clean clothes for him, his phone, whatever. He'll call as soon as he wakes up all the way, and you'll need to leave to get those and bring him those anyways."

Omega half-suspected Sarge was trying to manipulate him, trying to spin any excuse he could think of to get Omega out of the hospital. But Omega also knew how it would look if Price told people Omega had hurt Delta -hurt Delta! The very idea was ridiculous! But he'd be telling people who didn't know Omega and didn't know how precious Delta was or what an absolute _worm_ Price was. All they would see would be a man with the skills to this sort of thing forcing himself in the room.

He didn't like it. But Sarge was right. He was obnoxious that way.

"Tell them. York. The guy with one eye. He'll know what Delta would want," Omega said. Thank God for York. "He's been Delta's best friend forever. Price lies."

Sarge nodded. "I'll pass it along."

"And Price, I think he says things when they're alone. Make sure he's not alone with Delta. Please."

Sarge was quiet for a second, searching Omega's face. "He won't be alone. Anything else?"

Omega shook his head. He wanted to just start screaming, but that wouldn't actually help.

Sarge let go of Omega. "We'll take care of him for you," he said. He didn't have to swear it, but Omega knew anyways.

Tex looked up from her phone when Sarge walked away. She looked at him for a long moment, then said "Let's go."

Omega followed her out the door, down hallways not nearly as familiar as they should be, to her car. "I do trust York," he said, once they were safely inside, doors closed and windows up.

"That's good," Tex said.

"I don't trust Price."

"Nobody said you should."

There was nothing else to say. Tex knew Omega as well as she knew herself. She flicked on the radio. Omega wished she liked Billy Talent less. This was not a Billy Talent sort of day.

"This is your house," he said, when she turned the car off. "We need to go to my place."

"It's a _crime scene_ , Meg." Tex got out of the car. "Come inside. I'll make coffee."

She headed for the door, and Omega had to hurry to keep up. "Where's Theta?" he asked. He just. Wanted to make sure Theta was all right. Tex was in front of him and Delta wasn't and his mom and his madrina were adults, but he needed to see Theta. Make sure all his blood was inside his body.

"North took him out when we got the call." Tex started the coffee. Omega sat at the table, at the chair that had become his at some point, in between Tex and Theta.

" _Why_?"

"He doesn't need to see you like this." Tex's words were blunt as shotgun shells.

"Like what?" Omega stood, his chair falling backwards. "Having an emotion? Unhappy that someone hurt my boyfriend? Wouldn't you be upset if someone hacked off North's fucking leg? Wouldn't you be, Tex?"

"Yes, and probably more than you." Tex folded her arms and leaned against the counter. "But I spend less time around that kind of thing than you do. You do really love your job. Everyone who's talked to you for more than two minutes knows that."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Omega screamed. He half-expected Tex to send him to the bucket.

But she just explained, in that calm half-mocking way of hers. "Means that this isn't your fault, but you certainly gave him a whole belt of ammunition."

Omega just screamed obscenities at that point, and closed his eyes and punched the wall, hard and harder, until his knuckles split and stung and there was too much pain and blood to feel anything else.

"Are you done?" Tex demanded from the other side of the kitchen table. "Because Delta does not need to deal with your fucking tantrums after surgery. I'm not taking you back until you're done."

Omega hated his sister in that moment, hated her so much he didn't care any more. He flipped the table over at her, threw a chair when she stepped neatly out of the way. How dare she, how dare she say such things when Delta was somewhere alone, in a hospital and scared and needing someone with him. Someone to explain what was going on, calmly, and answer his questions.

Someone who could get through the conversation without flipping a table, probably.

Omega dropped to the floor like his strings had been cut. Tex came around the table carefully, kneeled next to him. "Here," she said, gentle like she only was with Theta and Omega. She pressed his hand to an icepack and wiped the tears from his face. "Hey. It's gonna be okay, you know."

"I should be there," he said. His lips were numb. He could barely breathe. "He's going to wake up and think I abandoned him."

"York is there, remember? York will explain it." Tex ran her fingers through Omega's hair, and she wasn't Delta but it was close enough. "Trust him. Trust _me_."

"They don't need to use general anesthesia." Omega rubbed his knee, where they would make the cut. He'd done it so many times, and he was glad every time the person was unconscious, comatose. "And when someone can't tolerate it, we make sure they're stoned out of their gourd and put up a drape. We don't let them watch."

"I know," Tex said. Her arm was very heavy around him, anchoring him.

"There's a reason," he said, and she hushed him gently.

"I know. I know." Tex rubbed his back. "I know."

And then there was nothing else to say, until Tex's phone lit up with York's number. She handed it to Omega. She didn't have to say why.

"Meg?" Delta said, sounding sleepy. "Meg, are you there?"

"Yeah," he said, and he had too much to say, too much to tell him. "I'm at Tex's. Can I come now?"

"I want you to be safe," Delta said, and it sounded like he was about to cry. How could Omega hold him when he wasn't there? Would York do it? Would York be good enough? Omega sincerely, unreservedly hoped so. Delta sounded so broken. "Don't come. I want you to be safe more than I want you here."

"I'll behave, I promise," Omega said, begged. "Delta, please, tell them I didn't do this. Tell them I wouldn't do this. They won't believe me."

"What are you talking about?" Delta's voice was sharp, under the last remnants of the anesthesia, behind the threatening tears. "Don't be ridiculous. But you can't come. You have to be safe."

Omega sucked in a breath, groped for Tex's hand. "D, you're not making any sense."

"He was looking for you," Delta said and Omega's heart dropped. "He was so mad when I wouldn't tell him who I am."

"Delta..."

"I couldn't tell him, I couldn't." Delta said. And then he told Omega who the man claimed to be.

Omega dropped the phone and barely made it to the sink before he was vomiting, his breakfast and last night's dinner and what felt like his toenails. He turned the faucet on before turning around. He tried to stay standing, but his legs refused to co-operate and he slid to the floor instead.

"Omega, what is it?" Tex filled a glass with water. "What did he say?"

"The man who did this...Delta says he's being used as bait. That the man wants me."

"Who the _fuck_ did you piss off, Meg?"

Omega shook his head. "It's not like that. He said he was my father."

* * *

They went to their mother's, of course. Where else would they go? Omega rode the whole way there with his head between his knees. What sort of person would come into his apartment and claim to be his father? It couldn't be the man he shared DNA with. That man was in jail, had been in jail Omega's entire life. That man wasn't even on Omega's birth certificate. Omega had never met him, had never wanted to meet him. All he knew was that man had killed someone, and his mother didn't love him. She didn't regret whatever she and that man had -and Omega was not asking for those details, thank you very much- because she loved Omega. But she didn't love that man, and they were all better off without him.

There was a strange car in their mother's driveway, and Tex put her arm out, told Omega to walk behind her. It didn't occur to Omega to argue. Tex eased the back door open and they crept inside. Tex was clearly worried, and right now all Omega wanted was his mother.

"Ma'am, please," a strange voice said. "I know you have no reason to trust us. But we want to find whoever was responsible and make him pay in a court of law."

Police.

Omega's first instinct was to run, and Tex grabbed his arm. She rolled her eyes and shook her head, held up a her free hand in the shape of a gun. She was right; taking off like a bat out of hell was a good way to get shot.

They stepped in the kitchen, Tex's hand still on Omega's wrist. The cops were like something out of bad comedy, one the size of a bear and one with a bad dye job and a distinct resemblance to the stuffed puma down at the park's nature center.

"This is my son," Kimball said. "And my daughter. Omega and Tex."

The little one smiled at them. They did not smile back. "We'd like to ask you a few questions as well," he said, but Omega wasn't listening. He let Tex tow him over to their mother, and he wanted her to hug him and tell him how this was going to be fixed.

The big one grunted when Omega was in between Tex and his mother. The little one introduced himself as Washington and his partner as Maine.

Then there were a bunch of questions Omega didn't give a shit about. Had he been in contact with his father. Had he ever written him a letter. What sort of relationship. Stupid, time wasting questions.

Tex was still hanging onto him, and his mom laced her fingers through his on the other side. Omega waited for the obvious questions. Where had he been? Who had been with him? Why was he here, in his mother's kitchen, and not at Delta's side? His eyes itched. Nothing seemed quite real. Omega hated cops.

"There have been...accusations made by Delta's father," Wash said. Omega bit his lip, tried to not look murderous. He didn't know how well he succeeded, not when his mother and sister tightened their grip on him. Here it was. People who looked at Price and saw how respectable he was, people who trusted him. People turned into weapons by their trust in Price. It wouldn't be hard. How ridiculous was this theory, a secret father Omega had never met finding his address. Finding his existence. Why was this happening? "We know exactly how much they're worth," the cop continued. "Be sure to tell him you've been cleared of all suspicion."

"What?" Tex asked for him.

"We're interested in keeping Delta safe," Wash said. "Clearly you're not a danger to him. Price is a licensed psychiatrist, correct? Do you know if he was ever in any other practice? Perhaps a surgical one?"

"What?" Tex repeated. The big cop growled.

Wash ignored his partner. "Price wasn't happy Delta moved out, was he? We heard last night that you and Delta left the restaurant almost as soon as you arrived."

"Are you suggesting Delta's own father did this, sir?" Kimball asked, squeezing Omega's hand.

"We want to cover all angles." Wash gave a very fake smile.

"Price would never do this," Omega heard himself saying. "When Price hurts Delta, he makes sure Delta doesn't realize Price is the one holding the knife. Metaphorically."

The big cop stood up. "Delta's protected," he said.

Wash tucked his notebook into his jacket. "Thank you for all your help," he said. "Hospital security will be keeping a close eye on him, and when he's released we'll be in contact about protection." He held his hand out, Kimball shook it. "Hopefully we'll get whoever did this before then. Stay safe. If you need anything, you still have my card, ma'am?"

"Yes," Kimball said. She did not sound happy. She was never happy about cops in her house.

They stared after the cops. Only once the front door shut behind them, did Tex and Kimball let go of Omega. Only once they were alone did Kimball move to the coffee machine. Only once Omega turned his chair around and sat astride it did Tex say, very softly, with emotion, "Mom, what the _hell_."

"Omega's..." Kimball hesitated, searching for the word, as if sperm donor was somehow no longer sufficient after nearly thirty years. "Felix was paroled last year. We weren't notified."

"Would you have told me if you were?" Omega asked. He tried to be angry. But he didn't know who he was supposed to be angry with.

Kimball did not walk away from the sink. Tex stood behind Omega, her hands on his shoulders. "I didn't put him on your birth certificate, I never filed for child support, because I didn't want him to know you existed. I thought if he didn't know, you would be safe."

"The article," Tex said. It was on the fridge. "He must have seen it."

“You look just like his brother.” Omega didn’t want to know that.

"Why did he hurt Delta?" Omega asked, half-afraid it would come out a growl, half-disappointed when it wasn't.

"That's what he did," Kimball said. "That's what he was convicted of. He was paid to get rid of someone, and he cut the man up while he was still alive."

Omega tensed under Tex's hands, and her grip tightened. He hadn't known he looked like anyone. He thought he was unique. His mom had never laughed at any of the jokes he made about cutting people's legs off. And now, he knew why. "When were you going to tell me?"

"Never." Omega could see her knuckles white, and why was she angry? She hadn't been lied to. Her boyfriend hadn't been attacked by her father.

"Why not," he demanded, and now he was growling, now he had the table in his hands.

"Omega Tiberius Kimball, if you flip two tables in one day..."

"Actually, this would be table number four," Tex interrupted, which was not in the least bit helpful.

That was enough. Like at the dinner with Price, Omega ascended to another plane entirely. A level where he needed to leave or he was going to murder every person he laid eyes on. He stood up, ignoring Tex trying to push him back down, ignoring his mother telling him to wait, to come back. Omega went out the back yard and sat on the swingset they'd put up when he was very small, before North, before Theta, before he wanted to be a doctor and save tiny babies. He took his phone out.

Gamma had texted him. A lot. Omega wondered who told him. The first message said, "If you need anything, say the word. Until then, please enjoy the entire Earth Is Space Australia corpus."

Omega would read the rest later. It was a beautiful day, if a little chilly to be sitting out here without his coat. The ground was brown and the sky was liquid silver, the wind skipping dead leaves across the ground. There were no birds, no small animals, no trace of blood. He looked at his phone. Such a small thing, and yet. If he touched it in the right places, he could summon a pizza.

He performed the ritual, though it wasn't pizza he was calling for. "Hello. Omega?"

"Nina Emily," he said, and he did not cry, it was too cold to cry, "I need you. Something bad happened. I didn't do it. I can't fix what I didn't do."


	6. Chapter 6

Delta woke up, and something was wrong that he couldn't quite place. He thought about it for a minute, then realized there was a piece of tape on the inside of his elbow. It was annoying, and he scratched at it.

"Hey, hey, hey, don't do that D." York's hand was on top of Delta's, warm and gentle.

"It itches," Delta said. There was a needle in his arm, and he was lying in a hospital bed and -oh. His leg. Missing. He knew that. Clearly that needle was delivering some sort of analgesic, because Delta wasn't feeling any pain. He wasn't feeling much of anything beyond itchiness from the tape and a vague sort of thirst. "Can I have some water?"

"Of course." York handed him a styrofoam cup, and held it while Delta drank deeply of the ice water. "Do you remember what happened?"

Delta thought about that. "You told Price to go fuck a goat's mouth," he remembered. "I liked that. And then I told them not to let Price back in. I really liked that."

"Before that, Delta," York said, taking Delta's hand.

"Yes." Delta didn't elaborate. York didn't need to know about the knife, about the heat and the smell, about the man and how easily he'd bound Delta to the chair. They would have to throw it out. And they probably would lose the security deposit. "Where is Omega? Is he safe?"

"He's with Tex." York dug in his pocket. "You want him to come?"

"No!" Delta swallowed. "No. The man wanted to know where Omega was. I don't know why. Not to cut off someone's leg, he seems pretty good at it himself."

"D." York looked at him in shock, dropped his hand. "D, did he...were you tortured? You should have..." York leaned forward and took Delta's hands again. "Omega wouldn't want you to be hurt like this. He would've wanted you to tell this guy right away."

"I did," Delta frowned in confusion. "That's why he didn't kill all of me, just my leg." He drew his hands out of York's grip, patted his scarred cheek. "I'm no hero. Can I use your phone?"

"Of course." York's face was very white. Delta's hands were shaking, and York had to dial for him. It rang, and rang, and rang. Omega's voicemail clicked on, claiming to be a roadside cafe. Delta and York knew that was how he screened out people who didn't know his number, but neither of them wanted to leave a message.

"Try Tex?" Delta suggested. "Do you have her number?"

"Yes." York spun the phone around, tapped on it. "You are weirdly calm. Are you okay? That is a really dumb question."

"York, I have received some _very_ high quality narcotics," Delta reminded him. And then there was Omega's voice, coming through the speaker, and everything shifted three degrees closer to right. "Meg? Meg, are you there?"

"Yeah," he said, and he sounded fine. He didn't sound hurt at all. "I'm at Tex's. Can I come now?"

"I want you to be safe." This wasn't safe. Not when the man was looking for Omega. Not when he knew where Omega worked. "Don't come. I want you to be safe more than I want you here."

"I'll behave, I promise," Omega said, begged, and Delta's heart broke "Delta, please, tell them I didn't do this. Tell them I wouldn't do this. They won't believe me."

"What are you talking about?" Delta couldn't make a way for that to make sense, and York wasn't volunteering any information. "Don't be ridiculous. But you can't come. You have to be safe.”

"D, you're not making any sense."

"He was looking for you," Delta said. "He was so mad when I wouldn't tell him who I am."

"Delta..."

"I couldn't tell him, I couldn't." Delta said. "He said you were going to be a family again. He said he was your father."

There was a sound, and then Tex's voice saying, "I've got it from here," and then silence.

"Delta," York said. "What. The fuck."

Omega was safe. He was with Tex and he was safe and the man wouldn't find him. And now he was warned, and Tex would protect him with her life. Delta covered his face with his hands and allowed himself to cry.

The bed dipped as York sat down next to him. "It's okay," York told him. "You're safe now." Delta nodded into York's shoulder, and wished Omega was there.

"If he's staying awake," someone said an eon later, "two policemen are here to talk to him."

"Hey. Look at me." York sat back, and Delta looked up at him. "Do you want me to stay?"

"No. Your retching will be distracting"

York unclasped the chain that had been around his neck for fifteen years. "Here. " He reached around Delta's neck and fastened it there. "It's St. Raphael."

"Like the turtle?"

York smiled. "Something like that." He cupped Delta's chin in his hands, pressed his lips to Delta's forehead. "He'll keep you safe."

* * *

Delta didn't really believe in any saint or turtle helping him. But it was cool and hard in his hand, the edges worn, and the jump ring made a pleasant click against the chain. And it was important to York, and it didn't hurt.

The nurse showed the police in, and Delta pulled the medal down the chain, click-click-click. There were two of them, one large, one small. They introduced themselves and Delta nodded along and wished for more drugs, click-click-click. The small one asked if he could sit down and the big one folded his arms and leaned against the closed door. Delta studied the tall one, studied his face and his posture, eventually matching it to Omega in Gamma's room that one time, telling Gamma that anyone who tried to hurt Gamma would have to get through Omega first, while Gamma and Delta packed up everything. Protective, Delta decided. And possibly angry, but not at Delta.

"Can you tell me what happened, Mr. Price?" the small cop asked. Washington, he'd said his name was.

"Don't ask Price what happened," Delta said. "He's lying."

Washington looked back at his partner. "Are you not Delta Price?"

"No, I am," Delta said. "I'm Delta. I want to be Delta Kimball but I haven't got the ring yet."

"Okay," Washington said slowly. "Can you tell me what happened to your leg?"

"Yes," Delta said. Click-click-click.

"What happened?" Wash prompted.

"It was stolen." Everything had a surreal, dreamlike quality. The medal in his hands was real, though.

Washington sighed. "By who?"

"By Felix. I don't know him," Delta added, to be helpful. "He just showed up and took my leg."

"Right, okay." Washington's face moved in a way Delta couldn't interpret. "He just showed up in your apartment, introduced himself and cut your leg off without saying a further word."

"No," Delta corrected him. "I came out into the kitchen and there was a strange man in there, and he grabbed me and he had zip-ties and he tied me to the chair, he asked where Omega was and I said probably the gym because that's what Omega had said and then he said he was Omega's father and he was looking for him, I said Omega didn't have a father and he said they were going to be a family again, then he went into the kitchen and talked about how Omega's mom tried to hide him but he was going to get his son back, and then he grabbed my leg and yanked it which hurt, and then he cut it and it hurt even more and blood went everywhere and then he went back into the kitchen, came out with a hot frying pain, and that hurt worst of all, and then he said there would be no hiding from him now because he just had to find me and there Omega would be. And before he left he told me I was a terrible boyfriend to give him up so easily."

The two police were silent. York's necklace went click-click-click. "I'm not," Delta said. "Omega wouldn't want me to be hurt like this. He would've wanted me to tell this guy right away."

"That is absolutely correct," Washington said. "Are you in a lot of pain?"

"No," Delta said. "I have a very high pain tolerance. And they gave me...this." He indicated the IV.

"Good." Washington made a smile at him. "You're very brave. We'll find the guy, don't worry. Can you tell us what he looked like?"

Delta shrugged. "I'm not very good at describing people."

"Would you be willing to talk to a sketch artist?" Washington asked, and Delta nodded. He’d be willing to try. He hoped they had realistic expectations for what would happen. "Okay, we'll set that up, and we'll have an officer here to look out for you. I promise, we're going to catch the guy, and keep you safe until we do." Washington stood up.

"And Omega?" Delta asked, before they left.

"And Omega, of course," the big one said.

Then they left, and York came back in with a nurse who showed him a button to deliver more blessed narcotics, and the last thought he had before he fell back asleep was that maybe Price was right, maybe he could get addicted to morphine in less than a day.

"You're in pain," the nurse said, and Delta didn't realize he had spoken out loud. "The feeling from the medication is just relief. Don't be afraid of it. Think of it as keeping your blood pressure under control."

* * *

"York," Delta said the next morning, after the physical therapist had come, tortured him, offered no sympathy, and gone, "You smell."

"I love you too, buddy," York said.

"Go home and take a shower." Delta wrinkled his nose. "Or something. See the sun for me."

"You hate the sun," York reminded him.

"York," Delta said again, because what was the point of all this if he didn't get his way. "Please."

Please leave, before Delta cried. He didn't want York to see him cry. York hated seeing people cry. He kept trying to fix things. And Delta had already used his one free cry of the month.

"North will be here soon, how about I keep you company until then?" York suggested, reminding Delta he had a very short time for this breakdown.

"I will be _fine_ ," Delta insisted. "Please, York."

"Alright, alright." York stood up and stretched. "Do you want me to bring anything back?"

"Yourself. And coffee. Mostly yourself." Because Delta did want York there. He didn't want York to leave. He just...needed York to leave so he could have a complete and utter meltdown.

York nodded. "Do you want me to leave my phone?"

Delta shook his head. "North is bringing mine."

"Gotcha." York hesitated. "I'll be back later."

Delta waved as York walked out and closed the door behind him. Then he watched the clock and very carefully counted out a hundred seconds, two hundred. He rolled over as the physical therapist had said it was so important to do, and pressed his face into the pillow that smelled like his own sweat and Omega after work.

And then Delta screamed until he saw fireworks behind his eyelids, until he needed to inhale or pass out.

It wasn't grief or pain or rage. It wasn't anything so human as emotion. It was pure animal instinct that had him sobbing uncontrollably into the bedding, everything kept at bay by the drugs and York's careful attentions. It didn't make him feel the slightest bit better, but he did it again, and once more. Three times seemed right. The three times in his own home he didn't scream. One for the sharp twist of his leg, farther than any humans should ever be. One for the cutting, for the bloodspray across the man's face and the wall and the books from his birthday. One for the pan, and the searing heat, and the smell of cooked meat.

He breathed for thirty seconds, then lifted his head and looked around. Nobody had come. Nobody had come then, either, as he lay on his floor, zipties digging into his wrists sharp enough to draw blood. Oh, York had found him eventually, York had called the ambulance and cut the zipties, York had handled everything as much as the law allowed him and then some. But that had been after Delta passed out, after Delta spent he didn't know how long in his blood, in the place that was supposed to be safe, his phone blinking at him from its charger, mocking him in morris code. Nobody had come then and nobody was coming now. York had been sent away and Omega...

Omega could not come. Not as long as that man was out there, and while Delta would usually be the first to defend the mentally ill as less prone to violence than most people, okay, he'd be the third, but that was only because Tucker and Church were quicker on the draw as the saying goes, Delta still couldn't come up with a better description for that man than utterly delusional sociopath.

Nobody had ever accused Delta of being able to predict someone's feelings; usually the opposite. But he was fairly certain that Omega was not going to want to have anything to do with the man claiming to be his father after this. Unless it was to take his eyeballs as souvenirs, as he was fond of threatening.

Omega could not come, because he would be in danger. Delta was little more than bait, worse than useless as he lay here unable to get up, sobbing incoherently into a pillow, pressing the button desperately, nothing but pain and heartache and wanting Omega so very, very badly.

But the storm passed, and Delta sat back up properly. North and Theta would be here soon, and Delta didn't want to worry them. He ran his fingers through his hair, combing it down as best he could, and wished for a real shirt, or at least clean clothes. North and Theta would understand, he hoped.

"Are you awake?" Theta asked as he tiptoed into the room, bearing a cake. A cake?

"Hello Theta, North" Delta said. North followed Theta in with what looked like Omega's old gym bag.

Theta set the cake, why was there cake, on the side table. "Delta!" he said, sounding weirdly happy. "Can I hug you?"

Delta nodded. "Am I hallucinating a cake?" he asked North.

North chuckled. He'd set the bag on York's chair and he was rummaging through it. "We brought you an apology cake. You know, like the one that said "Sorry for what I say during Mario Kart" Tex made Omega bake that one time."

"It's chocolate," Theta added.

"Sorry your leg was stolen," Delta read. It was written in green icing. It looked like a professional cake. That...must have been interesting to order.

"They wanted to write sorry you lost your leg, but Theta insisted." North had plugged a phone charger into the outlet, and now he was tying the other end of the cord to the bed, so the phone wouldn't fall off where Delta couldn't reach.

"You didn't lose your leg," Theta declared, bringing out plates and forks and a cake knife that Delta was sure hospital security would have opinions on. "It was stolen. Do you want to wait for York?"

"You are absolutely correct," Delta said. "No. I do not want to wait for York. The food here is terrible. He will understand."

"We'll leave some for him." North was back in the bag, moving easily around his son. "Tex gave me her key -Omega said it was okay. I brought you some clothes, your phone, a charger. Your new books." He lifted several volumes from the bag and set them next to Delta. They were the books that North and Tex had given him for his birthday. Or the same titles, at least. He distinctly remembered how sad he had been when his blood had ruined them before he got the chance to read them.

"Thank you," Delta said. Theta handed him a piece of cake. "Thank you," Delta said again.

"Uncle Meg's fine. Well, not really." Theta perched on the side of the bed with his own slice of cake. "But he's staying on our couch for now. He put a hole in our kitchen wall, just a small one. Mom patched it up."

"Oh," Delta said, very small.

"Tex will take care of him for you," North said. "She knows how to handle him."

"And he is totally ready to come whenever you call him," Theta added. "Mom told him not to come today and I thought he was gonna cry. Uncle Meg never cries, though. I don't think he can."

"I've never seen it," North chimed in. "And I've seen him in some pretty bad places. I've seen him cut onions, though, so I think he's physically able to."

"Why don't you want him to come visit you?"

Delta put his cake down. Theta looked so despondent, and so much like his uncle. "Theta," Delta began. "I do want him to come. I want him here so much. But I can't."

"Did your father _really_ tell them he thought Omega did this?"

Delta winced at North's question. "Price did tell them that, and it was treated as the absolute _horseshit_ it is." North grunted in acknowledgment and Delta continued. "But Theta, the man who did this to me, he was looking for your uncle. He doesn't know where your house is, so your house is safe. Right now, if Omega comes here, he will be in danger."

"Did you need to tell him that?" North asked.

Delta blinked at him. "It's the truth. The man said..." Delta rapidly reconsidered what he was going to say. He didn't want to think about it any more than he had to. He already replayed it every time he closed his eyes. "The man said that if he hurt me, it would be easier to find Omega. He just had to look for me."

Theta set his cake aside. "I'm glad he didn't kill you," he said. "Uncle Meg's like, really super upset. But if he's going to be in danger, I'll sit on him for you."

"I would appreciate that." Delta gave Theta a smile that he hoped didn't look as fake as he felt.

"What does he want with Uncle Meg, anyways?" Theta dug back into his cake.

"Theta," North said. "That's not appropriate."

"No, it's fine," Delta said. "He said he was Omega's father."

"Yuck." Theta licked frosting off his fork. "That's gotta be the worst father in the world."

"I don't know about that," North said. "Getting your kid's boyfriend thrown in jail is pretty bad."

"Dad. Leg," Theta pointed out.

North looked at Delta. "Sorry, man. But your father didn't even hesitate."

"It's okay," Delta said. "Omega would probably die in jail. I can get a new leg. Omega is one of a kind."

"That he is," North chuckled, shaking his head.

"Are you going to get a cool robot leg? Like Shiro?" Theta asked.

"Like who?"

Theta launched into a detailed explanation of some cartoon. Delta nodded politely and hit the button for the painkillers with as much discretion as he could. Eventually Theta disappeared off to find a bathroom, and Delta was just wondering when York would come back so he could nap when North sat on the end of the bed.

"You know," he said. "My dad disowned me before Theta was born. South too, because she stuck by me."

"I didn't," Delta said.

"Yeah. I always thought Omega was lucky. He didn't have a dad, so his dad was whatever perfect fantasy Omega dreamed up, and then he'd never disappoint."

"He said he wanted to be a proper family," Delta said. "I think Omega is going to disappoint him."

North laughed. "I do too. Look. My point is, you've had a long time to get used to the idea that your father isn't worth a bucket of shit. Omega hasn't. I know he never really thought much of what kind of dad his was before now, but the reality...who would think of this?"

Delta blinked at North. "The policeman asked me if my father did this to me and I was trying to protect him."

"Okay," North said after a pause. "That wasn't really my point either."

"Then what is it?"

"You're a great guy, Delta," North started, which annoyed Delta. Why couldn't he just say it? "You always worry about Omega. And he is having a rough time right now. But let us take care of him, okay? You have enough. We might not know much about-" North grimaced and waved at where Delta's leg should be. "But we know bad fathers. Let us take care of him."

"Okay," Delta said. He wished Omega could come here and be safe. He was very tired.

North noticed. "Do you want to nap?" he asked. "We'll stay here until York comes, in case your dad comes back, so you won't be alone with him."

"Why are we protecting Delta from his own dad?" Theta asked, coming back in.

"Because my father is," Delta paused to think what Omega had said. "He is my biggest medical problem."

"Like, you mean a flaming bag of dicks?"

"Theta! Language," North said.

"He is," Delta said solemnly. Wasn't it great how narcotics made him not care about what a horrible human being his father was. "Those words were invented for people like Price. People who lie to doctors so I stay sick."

"Man, I'm glad my dad isn't like that."

"Thanks, I try," North murmured under his breath.

"We'll just have to make sure he doesn't, then." Theta sat on the other side of the bed. "We got your back, man."

* * *

The books were...difficult to read. Delta assumed it was because of the drugs. He had been told that the risk of addiction was much lower than Price had ever shared, much lower than the risk of adverse effects from stress and pain. Something about blood pressure, he wasn't really paying attention. He knew Omega trusted this doctor, so he just nodded along in what seemed the right spots.

York had a book of his own, when he wasn't fussing over Delta. Delta asked him about class, about work, but York just grinned and promised it was taken care of and stole Delta's jello. That was fine. Delta did not like jello.

The books were difficult, but what else was there for Delta to do? If he tried, if he concentrated hard enough, he could manage. And they were his books. He could reread them later.

"Who the hell are you?" York asked, startling Delta out of his reverie.

Delta looked up. "Gamma? What are you doing here?"

"Trying to think of a good knock-knock joke," Gamma said. "But I'm stumped."

Delta giggled, once he got it.

"That...was terrible," York said. "And will you quit lurking in the doorway like some creeper?"

"Sssss-boom," Gamma hissed, deadpan, but he did come a little farther in the room.

"York, this is Gamma. Omega's friend," Delta looked at Gamma, hugging himself in the middle of the room. "Why are you here? You hate hospitals."

Gamma shrugged. While standing. In a hospital room.

"He hates hospitals. And doctors," Delta informed York, who clearly did not understand the severity of the situation. "Omega had to write him a prescription once because it was that or hit Gamma over the head and drag his unconscious body into the ER and he was pretty sure Gamma had pneumonia. Also when he had strep throat. And pinkeye. For someone who hates doctors, you sure do get sick a lot."

Gamma shrugged again. "My best friend is a doctor."

"Your best friend once stabbed you with a needle full of penicillin because he thought your sinus infection would eat through the bones of your skull and kill your brain," Delta reminded him. "Why are you here. You don't like me _that_ much."

"Mail delivery," Gamma said, tossing a box on Delta's knee. "Make sure you're not dead."

"Not yet," Delta said, tearing open the package. It had his name on it, but Gamma's address, so there was only one thing it could be.

The ring for Omega, dinosaur bone and black metal, soft curves and heavy enough in his hand to be a reminder. It was nothing like the picture on the website. It was perfect.

"What is that?" York asked.

Delta handed it over. "A ring. For Omega."

"It's nice." York turned it over in his hand, rolled it across his knuckles, handed it back still cool. “The tip jar was enough?”

“Yes.” The tip jar from their minecraft mods wasn’t that full, but fossil rings were surprisingly cheap. Delta turned back to Gamma, who was vibrating slightly. "Thank you for delivering it," he said. "I don't mind if you don't want to stay."

"There's more," Gamma said, holding very still. "You need to give it to him now."

Delta shook his head. "It's too dangerous. If he comes here, he'll get hurt."

"He's hurting now!" Gamma yelled, fists clenched, the most emotion Delta had ever seen from him. "He's already hurt," he said again, quiet and monotone like he always was, hugging himself like he always was.

"What happened," York demanded. "What is going on?"

"He's just." Gamma shook his head. "Bleeding. Tex stopped going to work."

"How did that happen?" Delta's fingers tightened around the ring. The edges were smooth and didn't cut into his skin.

Gamma shrugged, which was seventy percent of his non-emoji communication. "How does it ever happen? Razor blade over the bathtub."

"Wait, what?" York demanded. "He tried to _kill himself_?"

"That's not what I said. He just cut his arms up a little." Gamma rubbed his own. "He's an idiot but he's a surgeon, he wasn't actually trying to do anything but shock people into letting him come to the hospital. He knew what he was doing."

Delta very calmly reached for the basin next to the bed and vomited into it.

York swore and jumped up, but Delta ignored him. He just retched and spat, like the physical act would banish the easy imagining of Omega sitting on the edge of Tex's bath tub, watching blood drip off his fingers and run down the drain. The memory of doing the same at his mother's house, of telling Delta it was fine, he was fine, it was shallow, and his fingertips red with what could have been strawberry jam. It had been how long?

Omega had promised he would stop. That was the only condition Delta had laid on moving in together. That he'd never find Omega like that again. Maybe it wasn't fair, but he couldn't live with that fear.

York handed him water to rinse his mouth, and a napkin to wipe the last away. "He's fine now though, right?"

Gamma stared at York with flat lizard eyes. "Until he tries to fake a suicide attempt to come see Delta, I suppose."

"Gamma," Delta said quietly. But he didn't know what he wanted to ask.

"Just let him come," Gamma said, and it was almost pleading.

And then Gamma was gone, before Delta could assemble his thoughts

"Well," York said once it became clear Delta wasn't saying anything. "That's fucked up."

"I need to call him," Delta said. "I should never had told him to stay away."

"You were trying to protect him." York leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Nothing wrong with that."

"Yes," Delta said, feeling hope bud inside his chest. Not quite a blossom, but there, definitely there. Omega had kept his promise, and Tex would take care of him, and Gamma was a liar anyways

"Call Meg." York sat back in the chair. "Tell him to come here."

Delta froze, phone in hand. "He can't come here. I need to talk to him but he can't come here."

York rolled his eye. "Cops. Door."

Delta nodded vigorously. "Omega hates cops."

"Delta..."

"But besides that. He shouldn't...not like this. Not when he can see what happened." Delta shook his head, words slinking away from him. "He'll be sad and he won't let me make it better. He'll be fussy."

York always understood what Delta meant though. "You want him to feel better? Let him fuss over you. Give him something to do. He needs to keep moving, you know that."

Delta did know that, and he folded inward. "He can't come," Delta said quietly, and if this came up later he'd blame the drugs that made it not hurt, and that was wrong, he should be hurting but he was just numb. "He's never in my dreams. You are. But if he comes, that means it's real."


	7. Chapter 7

"Omega! I need your help," Tex called from the kitchen.

Omega slunk into the kitchen like a dog. But what was he supposed to do, sit on her couch staring at a blank page like nothing was wrong? He couldn't draw Delta's foot. It wasn't _right_. And he didn't want to draw anything else.

The dragon had still been there, the one that was supposed to look like York with one blind eye and look out for Delta when Omega couldn't. He'd gone over it again the night before they went out for Delta's birthday, because Omega knew Delta calmed down some when he looked and saw something Omega drew on him. Omega had wanted Delta to be able to see it in the restaurant, because there was never a meal or conversation with Price in the history of their relationship that didn't involved Delta staring at his own feet for an extensive period of time. And sure, there were plenty of times when Delta was looking off into the distance or down at his plate. With Price, though, it was always his feet.

Tex pointed Omega to the cutting board. "Onions, peppers, celery, go."

"Is this supposed to make me feel better or something?" he asked, half surprised she was letting him use a knife after what he'd done the day before. He'd had tiger-stripe arms long before his mother had paid for his tigers.

"It's supposed to get dinner ready. You gonna do it or not?" Tex slapped the knife down on the board.

"Fine." Omega picked it up. The vegetables were washed, and the knife was sharp, and it was irritatingly satisfying when the onion split cleanly in half with one cut. Chopping vegetables was easy, compared to what he usually was cutting. Skin gave way easy enough, and muscle only a little harder. Tendons and nerves could be stretchy, but with a properly sharp scalpel, it was nothing but a flick. Vegetables weren't quite consistent through and through, but they were certainly less stringy than human flesh. And of course, vegetables didn't have blood vessels to clamp off, vegetables couldn't bleed out onto the floor. Vegetables didn't have a popliteal artery to be seared shut.

Vegetables didn't need a bonesaw to be sliced into pieces.

Tex thanked him when she took the cutting board back from him, and for some reason, that pissed him off enough to kick the refrigerator. Tex didn't say anything and that hurt, in ways he didn't really want to think about as he dropped backwards into a chair at the table.

Tex made dinner, like everything was fine and Delta wasn't in the hospital and his DNA didn't come from a man worse than _hers_ did. And hers came from a baby-shaking arsonist.

Man. Their mother had _terrible_ taste in men.

When everything was covered and all the timers set, Tex sat across from Omega. "You need to stop," she said.

"Stop what," he asked, "being upset my boyfriend was tortured and mutilated by my own _father_?"

"Stop thinking he's your father," Tex said, like it was that easy. "Stop thinking you're anything like him."

"So you're a mind reader now," Omega snarled, because how dare she. How dare she. How dare she know.

Tex gave him a look that did not just speak, it _orated_. Her left eyebrow gave a passionate and searing monologue about how her baby brother, her mother's son, her carnalito could never hurt anyone, was soft and gentle and rescued baby puppies and had never done anything wrong in his life, especially not setting Terrance from third-period biology on fire.

Well. Terrance had been trying to set Sigma on fire at the time, and Omega had just meant to get the fire away from the freshman. Terrance himself catching fire was just a bonus to an incident Omega didn't lose a lot of sleep over. There had been cops then, too, and his mother not exactly speaking to him, and Tex prowling around Omega like a she-wolf.

"I do cut people's legs off for fun and profit," Omega reminded her in the silence.

Tex looked to the sky for patience. "Yes," she said, meeting his eyes. "You are a surgeon. I have noticed this."

"He does the same _thing_."

"Do you make house calls?"

Omega sat up straight. "What does that have to do with anything?"

" _He_ breaks into people's houses. People come to you and _beg_ you to dismember them." Tex spread her hands on the table. "When you're done with them, they're better off."

"Your point?" Omega asked. It was hard to stay mad at Tex. He tried, but it was so hard. "I _like_ it. Isn't that what matters?"

For just a moment, Tex looked almost sad, and her voice was as close to gentle as he could stand. "No, Omega. No, it isn't."

* * *

"I'm sorry," his mom said, in the driveway. "I should have told you."

Omega glared at her around his beer bottle. Suddenly he was fifteen again, and his mom was making him feel about five, and goddamn Tex was right when she said he shouldn't be around Delta right now.

His mom sat down next to him, and a part of him wanted to lean on her and close his eyes and let her make everything better, but a bigger part of himself knew that she couldn't, and that was bitter, bitter.

"You help people," she said, did she compare notes with Tex? Probably. Probably they stayed up late in the kitchen plotting how to fix Omega, because God forbid he be inconveniently less than perfectly content. "I'm so proud of you."

He set the bottle down, and the sound of glass against cement was loud in the evening. "Because you thought I'd grow up to be a serial killer, and here I am channeling my natural inclinations into the prestigious field of medicine?" He stood up, unwilling to be so close to her. "I'm not _stupid_ , Mom. I know what you and Nina Emily were up to!"

"I never hid it from you," she said, which was infuriatingly true. "There's nothing wrong with being angry."

"Then _why?"_ he asked, and it was less why did she do that and more why did she let him exist, when clearly he was proof that this kind of thing was genetic. "Why didn't you _tell_ me?" he demanded, howled.

His mother looked up at him. "When you were a child, you wanted to be a doctor like Emily, and fix people’s brains" she said, like that had anything to do with it. "Then when Theta was born, you decided you wanted to be a neonatologist, and save babies. And all through high school, you wanted to be an oncologist because cancer needs to be cut out."

"I know," he snapped, and he didn't care if he was being unfair. "And then I found out that if I really wanted to be chopping off limbs, I should be a surgeon."

"And then you decided that you'd rather be a surgeon," his mother corrected him, reminded him of a conversation he tried so hard to forget. "Because you wanted to fix things with your own two hands." She stood up, and he was so much taller than her, so much smaller than her. "I didn't want you to doubt yourself," she said, softly. They were not a soft people, his family, and yet here she was. "I didn't want you to think you were finding excuses. You've always wanted to make things right, Omega. Don't let anyone tell you different."

"You should have told me!" he screamed, because this was wrong, this was all wrong. This couldn't be coincidence. This wasn't okay. There was evil in his veins. No wonder he'd tried to tear them out so many times. He didn't deserve this. Not when Delta didn't even want him in the same room. He didn't deserve this family, he hated them, and he hated himself for hating them when they were so much more than he deserved.

"I should have," she repeated. "I'm sorry."

He picked up the bottle and threw it against the house. His mother didn't even flinch. What was he supposed to say? What was he supposed to do? Omega couldn't do this, couldn't manage this, and if he could cut his heart out and, y'know, not die, this would be so much easier.

And then the phone rang.

It was Delta, he knew it was Delta from the ringtone, and for three seconds he'd hate forever, he thought of not answering. But he could no more deny Delta than he could deny oxygen. "Hello?"

"Omega?" Delta said, and he sounded like he'd been crying, he sounded like he was clinging on by his fingernails. "Omega."

"I'm here," he said. "I'm right here."

"You're not here."

"Do you want me to come?" Omega asked, because it was killing him to be here, to be so far away from Delta, he was choking on the distance.

"Yes," Delta said, and Omega was in his car without saying goodbye to his mother, without telling Tex he was going. They were smart ladies. They'd figure it out. He called his madrina, hands shaking like they never did.

"Delta wants me," he said. "What do I do? What if he thinks I'm mad at _him_?"

"Oh, mi nino," she said. "That's not a problem."

"Look," he snapped, not in the mood, desperate to exhaust the rage, or at least transform it into the cold dry anger that was so much easier to hide from Delta. "I realize that is not exactly the most pressing thing on the agenda, but it _is_ the one thing I can can control."

Nina Emily laughed like tinkling bells, and he didn't take it personally because she always did that when someone sounded mad. "Mi nino, that's not a problem," she repeated. "You go in there, and you love him, and you trust him. You remember this is not your fault, and you remember that you would never do this. And then you let him see how angry you are that he is hurt, and you tell him _he_ did nothing wrong, he did not deserve this."

Omega exhaled, long and silent. "That's not helpful," he said.

"Fine. You let him tell you what he wants, you get it for him, and when he naps, you track down a social worker because you know he's going to need therapy."

That, at least, gave him some idea what to do for Delta. Why everyone thought he needed to be coddled more than Delta was beyond him, but they kept doing it. "Thank you," he said, as he pulled into his spot in the hospital parking lot.

"Give him our love," Emily said.

* * *

The hospital looked like it always did, and that looked like betrayal. But the receptionist smiled at him and called him Dr. Kimball like that meant something to her, and one of the surgical nurses asked what was he doing here, she heard he took leave for a family emergency?

Omega gave her the receptionist's smile and said this was the best hospital in the state, wasn't it? And that was about all he could manage as far as non-screaming interactions with people went, so he took the back stairs that only staff could take.

He'd forgotten Price was, technically, hospital staff.

"You," Price said, standing at the top of the stairs and Omega absolutely did not have time for this. "What are you doing here?"

"Singing telegram." Omega tried to push past him, but Price didn't move, and Omega was suddenly aware of three things. Price was angry, this was the first time he'd ever been alone with Price, and that if someone came in here and saw Omega beating him into paste he might lose his job.

At least there were no security cameras.

"You're supposed to be kept away," Price said. "I told them you shouldn't be around Delta."

Did he really think he could keep Omega from his own goddamn floor? Apparently.

"You're dangerous," Price continued. "Delta's going to get hurt with you." And with swollen knuckles and his sister walking on eggshells around him, and North kept putting hands on Omega’s shoulders -real subtle, that, like a brick to the face. "You can barely take care of yourself, let alone Delta."

What did that mean? That this was Omega's fault? How the _hell_ was this Omega's fault, when Omega had been halfway across town with his mother. When he'd never even known his father existed?

"I hear you do all the grocery shopping. That you're letting Delta hide in the apartment. Do you know how many years it took me to get him in there in the first place? I suppose you let him stay up all night, too. Well, I hope you're at least getting sex out of this. I'd hate to think he was taking advantage of someone with standards."

Omega couldn't even be angry at that. It didn't make sense. What was Price even saying? That Delta should suffer on principle, that Delta couldn't set his own bedtime, that Delta wasn't a fully-functioning adult?

No, Omega realized. Price recognized that Delta _was_ a fully-functioning adult despite Price's best efforts, and Price was _pissed_.

Well, Omega didn't really give a shit about Price. He wouldn't waste his breath trying to explain to Price that Delta was a grown-ass man. "You told them that I did this," Omega reminded him. "What do you care about my dick getting wet?"

"Oh, I never thought you did it," Price smirked, but there was no audience here, no Delta to defend, and Price couldn't hurt Omega. Omega was the son of the General, and he'd seen things that Price could never dream of. "You're too soft to do it. But what else could I expect from someone raised by a single mother in a house full of women?"

Why was Omega still standing here, letting Price talk? "So you're saying it's normal to cut people's legs off outside the theater. Two floors down is the oncology ward, why don't you go ask them if you have a brain tumor or something."

"You don't know how to be a man," Price said. "You don't take care of what's yours."

Was this Price expressing concern for Delta? Omega kind of felt it was. He didn't want to torpedo it. And everything was coming so slow. He just wanted Delta, wanted him desperately.

"You can't keep him in line, and it's time to stop playing house now," Price kept talking and nothing seemed real in this moment and Omega wondered if blood would come out if he cut himself. But Tex had cut his nails short when he didn't allow her to tape them up. Only Delta was allowed that. "With this new disability, and his condition what it is, it's time for him to come home where I can manage him."

Omega fell back into himself at terminal velocity, finally registering what Price was saying. And it felt good to fold his fingers into a fist, plant his feet and feel the strike start in the ground, through his hips and over his shoulder and Price out of his way in one smooth motion. It felt good to remove the last thing between him and Delta, between where he was and where he needed to be. Behind him, he heard a thud and some swearing, but it didn’t matter.

And then he was on the floor, nodding at his coworkers who, thankfully, understood this was not a talking sort of day, and then he was in the room and there were other people, but there was Delta lying in the bed and there was his arms around Delta, and nothing else mattered and he could breathe, he could breathe, he could close his eyes and wait for the world to shift back to real.

* * *

"Omega?" Delta asked, his fingers in Omega's hair. "Are you okay?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" Omega sat up. "Weren't, people?"

Delta shrugged, and reached down to touch his knee, except his knee wasn't there anymore. "Just York," he said. "He's used to you. I think he left some of Theta’s cake."

Omega grinned, because Delta was here and this was like a dream, because this still wasn't quite real and it didn't matter, because this wasn't happening and so he could be as witty and comforting and capable as he always wanted to be, like his sister, like his mother, and Church envied his family, never could quite forgive him for having what Church did not. "Theta's cake?" he asked, before the way Delta was squinting fully registered. "Never mind. I'll turn off the overhead light."

Leaving Delta to turn off the light was easy, it was so simple to rearrange the chairs and the room like Delta liked it, arrange the set for tonight's play. Easy because he knew he was coming back, sitting in the space where Delta's leg wasn't. Simple, because nothing was quite real, like it changed in the middle of surgery and became just more practice. Omega wondered, distantly, if he should care.

It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but Delta, not Omega's mother or her lies or his pain. Omega reached for Delta; Delta leaned forwards into the hollow of Omega's shoulder, where he belonged, and Omega rested his cheek against Delta's hair and listened to the steady beep of the monitors on the edge of his hearing, slow but not too slow, and felt Delta grow limp and heavy. "Gave me a button," Delta said.

"Good," Omega said. He hoped it would be enough. There was no pain like bone pain, and Delta had to be feeling that. Omega resisted the urge to peek under the bandages. He was sure he'd see it soon enough. He could be patient until then. "Hurt much?"

"No," Delta said, drawing out the o. He reached down to touch where his knee used to be and asked, "Stay?"

"'Course." Omega shifted on the edge of the bed, wanting to be able to feel his feet in the morning.

It was a long time before Delta said anything else. "Angry?"

"Yeah," Omega admitted, studying Delta's spine.

"Good," Delta said. "Safe." And then he was asleep, and Omega was left wondering what that meant.

Delta was safe from Omega's anger, of course. Omega wouldn't hurt him any more than he would ever hurt Theta. But that wasn't good, was it? That wasn't the way Delta's hand clutched a fold of Omega's t-shirt, that wasn't how Delta fell asleep almost instantly in Omega's lap, Delta who needed three hours to sleep in his own bed or or horse tranquilizers to sleep in a strange one, who never managed to sleep in Omega's mother's house. And surely Delta didn't think Omega wouldn't care about the attack. It made a difference, of course. Omega wasn't going anywhere, but this wasn't a broken arm and a temporary inconvenience, though Omega hadn't gone anywhere that time either. That had been an accident, this wasn't. This was...things Omega wasn't going to think about. Things that made Omega not want to let Delta out of his sight ever again, and his arms tightened around Delta, and he growled at the thought of anyone else touching him and oh.

Oh. That the answer.

Omega wouldn't let anything happen to Delta. Delta wasn't afraid of Omega, but damn near everyone else was. Omega's anger was sword and shield both, and within it Delta was safe.

Oh.

* * *

Omega dozed, Delta warm and soft in his arms, until he was hot and tight and silently screaming himself awake and staring into Omega's face.

"You're okay," Omega promised, stroking Delta's face, and the stubble under his palms proved him a liar. Delta _hated_ not shaving. "I'm here, you're safe." he said, because that at least was true.

Delta's eyes were wide, unseeing, and he blinked rapidly before throwing himself into Omega's chest. "Are you still angry?" he asked, fisting Omega's shirt.

"Yeah," Omega admitted, his hands tracing Delta's spine. "You gonna tell me what that's about?"

"If you're mad, it's not my fault," Delta said, which made perfect sense, except for the part where he relied on Omega to tell him what was and was not true. "If you're mad, you're staying."

That made less sense, but Omega suspected the explanation would end with him throwing Price down another set of stairs. What had happened to him? Nevermind, that was a problem to deal with another day. "I'm not going anywhere," he promised, and he let Delta feel the cold rage in his veins, that tensed his muscles and kept them under his complete control.

Delta relaxed fractionally inside his arms, and Omega kissed the top of his head. He could do this, he could be angry and gentle at the same time. It wasn't even hard to swallow it down, let it sleep inside his ribcage, wrapped around his lungs like pleura.

"I want you," Delta said, leaning backwards, pulling Omega down with him. "I need you."

"Anything," Omega promised, letting Delta guide his head down to be kissed.

"I can't stop thinking, I can't sleep," he said, his hands finding the waistband of Omega's jeans.

"I don't know if this is a good idea," Omega tried to say, but Delta was distracting and he'd missed the taste of Delta's skin. "Your body..."

"Needs to do something normal," Delta interrupted him. Delta never interrupted. "Please," Delta begged, running his hands in Omega's short hair, and Omega couldn't say no to him. So he nodded into Delta's neck, slid his own hands under the hospital gown, tangled in wires and the necklace Omega had never seen York without. "Please," Delta said again, and Omega kissed him too deep for speech.

Omega pressed him back into the bed, fit himself around and over Delta, and the bed was narrow but he managed, his mouth tight over Delta's pulse, over Delta's clavicle.

"Not, no," Delta whispered, plucking at Omega's shirt. "Fuck me."

Omega pressed closer to Delta, close enough to feel his bones. "Always ready for you," he said, and it would hurt but it would be worth it.

Delta shook his head, drew his foot up. "You inside me," he half-whispered into Omega's skin. "Don't want to think anymore."

Omega pushed himself up, just far enough to look down at Delta, fragile and beautiful and so strong, his eyes so green in the dimness, so desperate. "Whatever you want," he said, pressing a kiss to Delta's lips to make his eyes slide closed, hide the pain. "I'll be right back."

There was lube in the drawer, he knew, and his clothes on the floor in haste, monitores to be flipped off so they wouldn’t be disturbed, and then he was naked between Delta's thighs. Delta laid out before him like empty paper, like he only was on the very worst days, like he had been the night of his birthday dinner but this was worse, this was Delta a raw nerve underneath him and Omega wanted to take him inside, protect him.

But that wasn't what Delta had asked for, and Omega kissed him again and again as he tore open the pack of slick, drew back and watched Delta's face as he circled his entrance with one wet finger like every questionable porn he'd ever read. Delta's eyes stayed closed, and he was so quiet as Omega slipped in, and Omega kissed lips pressed in a line as he tried to remember how this was done when he couldn't feel the burn himself.

Delta whimpered when Omega rolled a second finger in, and he had no leverage but he tried to meet Omega halfway regardless, and when he tried to gulp air Omega was there, whispering "so good," in Delta's mouth, tucking it behind his teeth. "So good," Omega repeated as he stretched Delta with quick circular motions. "So good," he said again, feeling muscles relax under his hand, his fingers feeling so much less resistance. Delta whined low in his throat and fuck, that was it, Omega couldn't wait any longer and he slid into Delta's body gentle as he could.

Delta arched underneath him, gasping, his fingers tight enough on Omega's shoulders to bruise. "So good," Omega repeated, his hands running over Delta's skin, avoiding the tape and the tubes and his cock hard and leaking. "So good for me. So beautiful."

He felt so fragile under Omega's hands, so delicate, and Omega was so careful with him, had to remind himself to be careful with Delta's body, because Delta was so strong, could take Omega at his worst, it was easy to forget he was made of bone and not iron. Omega didn't have much leverage, and Delta had even less, and he was afraid to touch Delta's left thigh at all, but Delta wasn't complaining. So Omega drove into the soft warmth of Delta's body, again and again, and his own body felt empty but he gave Delta all he could.

"So good," Omega said again, wrapping his hand around Delta's untouched cock. "Come for me," he purred and Delta's whole body twitched, and Omega swallowed his scream.

Omega barely didn't collapse on Delta, fell to his side instead. "I'm a mess," Delta murmured.

"Not sorry," Omega said, even when Delta wrapped his arms around Omega and held him close enough to smear the sticky mess between them.

"I need help," Delta said, and Omega promised he would, and it was easy, easy.

* * *

Delta came home on crutches, seven days after admission.

For an amputation, that was two days later than normal. For a traumatic amputation, that was early, and he was let go on the understanding that Omega would be staying very, very close, and that two of them would be staying home.

It wasn't against medical advice, exactly, though Omega had to do some fast talking to make it happen. Delta hated being in strange places, hated sleeping in strange beds, hated fumbling in unfamiliar showers and eating off someone else's plates.

Tex had offered them a place to stay, and his mom, and York. They thought Delta wouldn't want to go back, that the two of them would want to move away from the scene. But Delta closed his eyes and leaned against Omega and whispered, "I want to go _home_."

And Omega had gone to Sarge, and the words came easy. Delta needed to be home, for psychological reasons.

Neither of them had been home for a week, and so Omega opened the door with care. North and Theta and York had cleaned it, had brought out clothes for Omega and phone charges and Delta's glasses. And it looked like it always did, maybe a little cleaner.

Except for the little man standing in their kitchen, rail-thin with a nasty look, and from the way Delta's fingers wrapped around his arm, Omega knew that was his father.

"Hello, Omega," his father said with a smile. "Look how big you've gotten." And he was talking, saying other things, but Omega was only listening with half an ear. Delta was out; at the best of times Omega wouldn't count on Delta in a fight, but now was worse than ever. The hallway, where the walls were too close for his father to get around him, that was the safest place for Delta, and Omega started edging to the left.

His father said several mean things about his madrina, and Omega was vaguely disappointed. He'd not fantasized about meeting his father much, but he didn't think the man would be so small and mean, that his words would be so small and mean. They rolled off Omega like water, like so many lies, and he hardly paid attention to them.

Omega got Delta halfway to the hallway, and his father came closer and said they could be a family now, and Omega very calmly reached over the counter and pulled the big knife out of the block by feel. Delta made a small noise, and his father laughed.

"Don't like knives?" he said, and his smile was terrifyingly genuine. "I bet he's a great fuck, if you're into that kind of thing. I'm not, but I'm not going to judge my only son. I sure hope he's as good at sucking cock as he looks, because he's otherwise useless."

Omega's fingers were numb, but they held the knife sure and steady. He could see his father's jugular beating against the skin of his neck. Such a weedy little bastard. "Still, we can't take him with us," his father continued.

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Omega said, finding his voice for the first time.

"Of course you are." His father shook his head. "We have so much to talk about, so much in common!"

"I'm nothing like you," Omega said, and he could hear the frost in his words but his father ignored them.

"Of course you're just like me," he smiled, "we both cut people up for fun and profit."

"You cut them up for fun." Omega wished Delta would run to the bedroom and shut the door. Wished he could. "I'm the one that gets the profit."

"Tell me, how many times have you wondered what this one looks like under his skin?" His father pointed his own knife at Delta; Delta pressed himself against the wall.

Never, Omega thought. He'd never wondered. And as his father came closer, he realized he had no reason to let this man stay in his home. "Go," he ordered, lowering the knife. "Get out of here."

"Oh, but we're just getting started, mi mijo." His father came closer. "You know you love doing what we do. Why else would you do it?"

That wasn't even a question. "Cancer must be cut out," Omega said. His mother was right. His madrina was right. Because he never wanted to take Delta apart. He never wanted to take York or Caboose or Gamma apart, or even North. He just...wanted to take what was making people sick, and put it in the garbage.

This man in front of him, he'd embraced the darkness that grew inside like cancer. Omega didn't know his story and didn't care. There was nothing, nothing that could excuse what he'd done to Delta. This man who was his father but nothing like him was talking, and Omega didn't bother listening. Sometimes, it was so bad it couldn't be fixed, sometimes all Omega could do was cut off the disease. Cancer must be cut out.

He had to get the knife pretty goddamn low to reach his father's femoral artery. But was always easier to find on a skinny guy, and he wasn't checking the pulse. One hand on the shoulder to hold him still, stick the knife in where the hip and thigh met with all the strength he used to reposition bones, and pull the knife out with the same speed he used to stop bleeding, and repeat four or five times. Easier than it seemed.

Omega dropped the man on the floor and turned to Delta. "Are you okay?" he asked, not caring about the blood soaking through his shirt. Nothing mattered but Delta.

Delta reached for him, took his hands, and fell to his knee. "Omega Tiberius Kimball," he said, letting go with one hand to dig in his pocket. "Will you marry me?" He held up a box, just big enough for a ring.

And Omega had so many questions, starting with why was he asking now. But only one answer. "Yes, yes," he said, tugging Delta up. "Yes," he said, and kissed Delta like coming home.


	8. Chapter 8

Once all the paperwork was signed and her tigrecito was officially a married man, the entire family descended upon the tattoo parlor before the reception. Delta hadn't just married Omega. He'd become one of the family, and that meant the tattoo.

Oh, he'd been part of the family since before they'd even become engaged. But they were waiting for Theta's birthday, so the two of them could get it together. Theta was growing up so fast, almost a man, and all he wanted for his birthday was the musical notes on his skin, linking him to his mother and father, grandmother and uncles and aunts.

The Xbox hadn't been a disappointment, though and Emily had smiled at Omega, remembering another teenage boy's birthday fifteen years ago. Her mijo had grown into a fine man, so far from what Vanessa had imagined on her darkest nights.

Maybe not so far. He had killed a man, after all.

"Marriage suits them," Vanessa said next to her.

"It does," Emily agreed.

"He's okay," Vanessa continued, sounding like she hardly believed this day would ever come. "He's going to be okay. Because of Delta."

Emily hummed non-committedly. Vanessa was right, but Emily wasn't going to say that where Delta might overhear. That was a pressure nobody should bear.

"I'd love him for that alone," Vanessa continued.

"Like Gamma?"

"Yes," Vanessa laughed. Omega's best friend was a hard boy to love, but they managed. "I'm glad to have Delta in the family regardless."

"Is his father still causing trouble?"

"Now that Delta's defense is over? He's got nothing to sabotage."

Emily nodded. Dr. and Dr. Kimball were lost entirely in their own little world, and across the room their rings glinted together. "It's quite impressive he didn't have to delay it, considering."

"He's one of us," Vanessa said. "Delta didn't want to stretch it out any longer than he had to, so we made it happen. For us, it was only cheerleading. For him though..." She sighed. "Yes. You know how impressive better than I, I suspect."

"And his father is leaving him alone?" Emily repeated.

Vanessa was quiet for a minute, looking over where her grandson was rolling his eyes at his father. "The hospital revoked his privileges and his license is under review. I don't know why, except that Delta has some very unhappy friends."

"Good. He needs to be stopped from hurting more people. Omega can't save them all."

"No, he can't," Vanessa said, pride in her voice. "But he'll try."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
